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THE  PETRINE  CLAIMS 


A  Critical  Inquiry 


RICHARD    FREDERICK    LITTLEDALE, 

LL.D.,  D.C.L. 


"Nos  ergo,  qui  sumus  vocamurque  Christiani,  non  in  Petrum 
credimus,  sed  in  Quern  credidit  Petrus." 

S.  AUGUSTINUS,  Dc  Civitatc  Dei,  wiii.  54. 

Z'  ^■^■'        OF   T-i 

t    UNIVERSi     i     ] 

\  n         OF  . .    / 

Published  under  the^ffixii vu'df  the  Tract  Coniviitlce. 


LONDON : 
SOCIETY  FOR   PROMOTING  CHRISTIAN   KNOWLEDGE, 

NORTHUMBERLAND  AVENUE,   CHARING  CROSS,   W.C. 

43,  QUEEN  VICTORIA  STREET,  E.C. 

BRIGHTON  :    135,  North   Street. 
New  York  :   E.  &  J.  K.  YOUNG  &  Co. 


"?     ^ 


se 


WILLIAM    STUBBS,   D.D. 

Lord  Bishop  of  Oxford, 

Historian  of  the  English  Constitution, 

This  Study  in  the  Constitutional  History  of  the  Church 

IS,  with  his  permission, 

inscribed. 


164811 


PREFACE, 


The  scope  and  method  of  this  treatise  (itself  a  corrected 
reissue  of  a  series  of  articles  which  appeared  in  the  Chiwch 
Quarterly  Revieiv  in  1878-1884)  differ  from  those  of  other 
works  bearing  on  the  Roman  Catholic  controversy,  in  that 
it  does  not  touch  the  theological  side  of  the  matters  in 
debate,  save  incidentally  and  subordinately ;  and  is  solely 
occupied  with  the  legal  aspect  of  the  claim  laid  by  the 
Papacy  to  sovereign  authority  over  the  Church  Universal. 

For  this  claim  is  much  more  than  a  mere  speculative 
theory,  or  even  than  a  dogmatic  principle;  it  is  a  legal 
maxim  of  the  widest  range  and  the  most  detailed  applica- 
tion, directly  affecting  every  matter  and  every  act  within 
the  spiritual  domain,  whether  belonging  to  the  sphere  of 
faith  or  to  that  of  discipline.  The  questions  of  the 
authority  of  Creeds  and  Councils,  of  the  competence  of 
all  ecclesiastical  officers,  of  the  valid  administration  of 
Sacraments,  of  the  legitimacy  of  forms  of  devotion,  of  the 
terms  of  communion  requisite  to  Church  membership,  and 
all  cognate  ones,  are  inextricably  bound  up  with  tliis  single 
proposition,  which  is  thus  of  supreme  legal  importance. 

That  being  so,  and  the  "  Privilege  of  Peter "  being 
•alleged  as  conveying  no  mere  honorary  Primacy,  but  as 
concentrating  the  whole  government  and  jurisdiction  over 


VI  THE    PETRINE   CLAIMS. 

the  Church  Universal  in  the  person  of  the  Pope  for  the 
time  being,  it  is  removed  from  the  sphere  of  dogma  and 
from  that  of  speculation  into  that  of  practical  and  legal 
action,  and  therefore  must  be  examined  and  tested  by  legal 
methods,  in  order  to  ascertain  its  credentials. 

The  claim  usually  takes  two  forms :  that  it  is  based  on 
and  warranted  by  a  Divine  charter,  contained  in  Holy 
Scripture ;  and  that  it  has  been  in  fact  enjoyed  and  exer- 
cised, with  the  full  recognition  and  approval  of  ancient 
Christendom,  for  a  period  so  long  and  unbroken  as  to 
add  a  title  by  prescription  to  reinforce  that  conferred 
by  the  original  charter. 

The  following  pages  are  exclusively  concerned  with  an 
investigation  of  these  two  theses,  in  their  Scriptural,  con- 
ciliar,  and  historical  aspects ;  and  the  principles  laid  down 
by  the  Roman  Canon  Law  have  been  applied  throughout 
to  guide  the  inquiry  and  determine  the  conclusions  on 
purely  legal  grounds,  as  open  to  less  dispute,  and  admitting 
of  less  evasion,  than  the  theological  treatment  of  the 
controversy  has  usually  proved. 

R.  F.  L. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Legal  Evidence  of  Scripture. 

The  Papal  claims  pushed  to  their  final  goal  by  the  Vatican  decrees 
— Roman  controversy  henceforward  limited  to  a  single  issue — 
Claim  that  the  Church  of  Rome  is  the  whole  Church — Lan- 
guage of  the  Vatican  decrees— Three  concurrent  tests  of  divine 
privilege — Vatican  decrees  on  the  Papal  claims — Need  of  con- 
clusive evidence  to  prove  them — Evidence  as  to  St.  Peter  all 
contained  in  the  New  Testament— Rules  of  the  Roman  Canon 
Law  to  govern  claims  of  privilege — The  Petrine  Charter  in 
the  New  Testament — As  expressed  in  Christ's  words — As  im- 
plied by  Christ's  actions — As  evidenced  by  St.  Peter's  own 
conduct  after  the  Ascension — As  attested  by  St.  Peter's  lan- 
guage— St.  John  and  St.  Paul  more  dogmatic  in  teaching 
than  St.  Peter — G:  eater  bulk  and  importance  of  the  Pauline 
writings — Evidence  of  St.  Paul  as  to  the  constitution  of  the 
Apostolic  Church — Claims  to  authority  made  by  St.  Paul — 
Disciplinary  rules  laid  down  by  him  — Result  of  comparison 
between  the  positions  of  SS.  Peter  and  Paul — Obscurity  of 
wording  in  the  alleged  Petrine  Charter — Bellarmine's  argu- 
ment—Its legal  invalidity— The  epithet  '*  Rock  "  in  Scrip- 


viu  THE  pp:trine  claims. 

ture — The  rank  and  privileges  of  Jerusalem  under  the  Mosaic 
dispensation — No  reason  for  any  similar  privilege  under  the 
Gospel — Slight  and  unemphatic  mention  of  Rome  in  New 
Testament— No  direct  connexion  with  St.  Peter — Doubtful- 
ness of  identifying  Babylon  and  Rome — No  evidence  for 
the  Petrine  Claims  deducible  from  the  letter  of  Scripture, 
viewed  as  a  legal  document  alleged  in  proof  pai!;e 


CHAPTER  II. 

Legal  Evidence  of  Liturgies  and  Fathers. 

The  general  belief  and  practice  of  the  Christian  Church  may  be 
accepted  as  evidence  in  the  absence  of  express  Scriptural 
statement — Evidential  value  of  such  testimony — Recapitula- 
tion of  the  points  to  be  proved  in  order  to  establish  the  Petrine 
Claims — Five  main  sources  of  inquiry — What  sort  of  evidence 
is  inadmissible — Evidence  of  the  Liturgies — Authority  of  the 
Fathers  as  witnesses — Patristic  interpretations  of  the  three 
great  Petrine  texts — Evidential  value  of  honorific  epithets  of 
St.  Peter page    60 


CHAPTER  III, 

Legal  Evidence  of  Conciliar  Decrees, 

Authority  attributed  to  the  Councils  by  the  Church  of  Rome- 
Apostolic  Canons  know  no  rank  superior  to  Metropolitan- 
Council  of  Nice  implies  limitation  of  Roman  Patriarchate- 


CONTENTS.  IX 

Council  of  Sardica — Its  Canons,  granting  appellate  jurisdic- 
tion to  Rome,  almost  certainly  forged  in  the  Papal  interest — 
Second  General  Council  of  Constantinople  exclusively  Eastern 
— Recognises  no  appellate  jurisdiction  in  Rome — Concedes 
second  place  in  the  hierarchy  to  Constantinople — Council  of 
Carthage  in  418  repudiates  Papal  jurisdiction,  rejects  the 
alleged  Sardican  Canons,  and  prohibits  appeals  beyond  sea- 
Council  of  Carthage  in  424  renews  the  repudiation  of  Papal 
jurisdiction — Third  General  Council  of  Ephesus  held  because 
of  the  failure  of  the  Pope  to  settle  the  Nestorian  question — 
Takes  no  account  of  the  Papal  deposition  of  Nestorius — 
Enacts  a  Canon  forbidding  all  bishops  to  extend  their  jurisdic- 
tion over  fresh  territory — Fourth  General  Council  of  Chal- 
cedon  constitutes  an  appellate  system  incompatible  with  the 
Roman  claims — Enacts  a  canon  alleging  the  Roman  Primacy 
to  be  a  merely  human  grant  on  political  grounds — Maintains 
and  reaffirms  if  against  the  protest  of  the  Papal  Legates  — 
Conclusions  which  flow  from  this  enactment — Proof  of  the 
historical  truth  of  the  Canon — Language  of  St.  Irenceus  as  to 
the  precedency  of  Rome— Its  most  probable  interpretation — 
Roman  synods  in  the  fifth  century — Trial  of  Pope  Symma- 
chus — Councils  of  Gaul  and  Spain  in  the  sixth  century — Un- 
favourable to  Petrine  Claims — Fifth  General  Council  of  Con- 
stantinople— Condemns  Pope  Vigilius — Roman  Councils  in 
sixth  century — Councils  of  Gaul  and  Spain  in  the  seventh 
century — Sixth  General  Council  of  Constantinople  —  Con- 
demns Pope  Honorius  as  a  heretic — Roman  attempts  to  set 
aside  this  condemnation — Disproof  of  such  attempts — Evi- 
dence of  the  Council  of  Frankfort  against  the  Papal  claims — 
Synod  of  Rome  in  963  deposes  Pope  John  XII. — Council  of 
Sutri  in  1046  deposes  three  rival  Popes — Council  of  Pisa  in 
1409  deposes  and  excommunicates  two  rival  Popes — Council  of 
Constance  in  141 5  deposes  three  rival  Popes — Council  of  Basle, 
though  not  canonically  recognised,  of  great  value  as  historical 
testimony — Its  anti-Papal  enactments — Legal  effect  of  the  de- 
position and  election  of  Popes  at  Pisa  and  Constance  ...  faje    91 


THE    PETRINE   CLAIiMS. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

Legal  Evidence  of  Acts,  Conciliar,  Papal, 
AND  Patristic. 

l^egative  evidence  legally  stronger  than  positive  evidence  in  ques- 
tions of  claim  -Growth  of  Papal  power  an  incidental  disproof 
of  its  divine  origin — Second  Century  :  Debate  between  St. 
Polycarp  and  St.  Anicetus — Pope  Victor  I.  and  the  Asiatic 
Churches — Language  of  St.  Irenseus  on  the  question— Third 
Century  :  Evidence  of  Tertullian —  Evidence  of  St.  Hippolytus 
— Grave  charges  against  Popes  Zephyrinus  and  Caliistus — 
Evidence  of  St.  Cyprian — Two  distinct  and  contrasted  classes 
of  statement  in  his  writings — His  actions  show  how  they  are 
to  be  harmonized — Resistance  of  St.  Cyprian  and  the  Church 
of  Carthage  to  the  Roman  Church — Attitude  of  St.  Firmilian 
—  Further  acts  of  St.  Cyprian — Interference  in  Spanish 
Church — Errors  committed  by  the  Pope  in  this  case — Forgeries 
in  the  text  of  St.  Cyprian — Paul  of  Samosata — Fourth  Cen- 
tury :  Polity  ^f  the  Christian  Church  in  the  era  of  Constantine 
the  Great-Undirect  disproof  of  Papal  supremacy — Councils 
incompatible  with  a  spiritual  monarchy — Positien  accorded  to 
the  Emperor  in  the  Church — Constantine  the  Great  and  the 
Donatists — Council  of  Nice  convoked  by  the  Emperor,  not  by 
the  Pope — Hosius  of  Cordova  its  president — Proof  that  he 
was  not  co-Legate  of  the  Pope — What  the  i-ank  of  the  real 
Legates  at  the  Council  shows — Confirmation  of  the  Council 
by  the  Emperor — Validation  of  Councils  by  dispersive  ac- 
ceptance of  their  decrees — Not  restricted  to  the  Pope — Papal 
confirmation  insufficient  alone — Council  of  Antioch — Canons 
of  Antioch  force  their  way  to  acceptance  in  the  teeth  of  Papal 
rejection — Fall  of  Pope  Liberius — Proofs  of  his  actual  com- 
plicity in  heresy — Second  General  Council  of  Constantinople 
- — Convoked  by  the  Emperor — Its  president  a  prelate  excom- 
municated by  the  Pope — Confirmed  by  the  Emperor  alone — 
Proof  that  there  was  no  Roman  confirmation  of  the  Council 
— Language  of  Gregory  the  Great,  distinguishing  between  its 
Canons  and  its  dogmatic  Decrees — St.  Ambrose  and  Maximus 


CONTENTS.  XI 

the  Cynic — Local  Council  of  Constantinople  in  382 — Rejects 
the  interference  of  the  Roman  Church  in  Eastern  elections  to 
patriarchal  Sees,  and  alleges  Jerusalem  to  be  the  "  Mother  of 
all  Churches  " — St.  Chrysostom's  ecclesiastical  posit  ion... /^^t^  125 


CHAPTER  V. 

\]     Lack  of  Proof  for  St.  Peter's  Episcopaie 
AT  Rome. 

Distinction  between  privilege  and  prescription — Evidence  of  Re- 
velation essential  to  establish  a  claim  of  divine  privilege — 
Silence  of  Scripture  as  to  any  relation  of  St.  Peter  to  Rome — 
Conjectural  solutions  of  the  historical  difficulties — Negative 
arguments  from  the  Pauline  Scriptures — Ante-Nicene  testi- 
mony to  the  presence  of  St.  Peter  at  Rome — Analysis  of  its 
elements — It  affords  no  proof  of  the  Roman  episcopate  of  St. 
Peter — Xor  of  his  devolution  of  any  peculiar  privilege  to  the 
Bishops  of  Rome — Evidence  of  Eusebius — The  Chronicon  of 
Eusebius  the  real  basis  of  the  Ultramontane  claim — Uncer- 
tainty of  its  testimony — Obvious  source  of  the  tradition  as  to 
the  foundation  of  the  Roman  Church  by  St.  Peter — Petrine 
episcopate  not  distinctly  asserted  till  post-Nicene  times — Con- 
tradiction of  Optatus  and  St.  Epiphanius  on  the  leading  de- 
tails of  the  story — Further  contradiction  by  Rufinus — Chro- 
nological difficulty  as  to  the  date  of  St.  Linus — St.  Jerome) 
the  first  to  formulate  the  legend  of  St.  Peter's  twenty-five 
years'  episcopate  at  Rome — Internal  disproofs  of  his  account 
— No  valid  legal  evidence  adduced  so  far  for  St.  Peter's  epis- 
copate— The  case  of  the  Popes  still  weaker — No  clause  in  the 
Petrine  texts  other  than  personal,  without  words  giving  right 
of  transmission  —Such  transmission  expressly  provided  for  in 
three  leading  .Scriptural  charters  of  privilege — St.  Peter  thus 
not  empowered  to  transmit  any  peculiar  grant  made  to  him  per- 
sonally— Refutation  of  the  plea  that  the  Petrine  right  of  trans- 
mission may  have  been  part  of  the  unwritten  revelations  of  the 


Xll  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS. 

Great  Forty  Days — None  of  the  requirements  of  Canon  Law 
for  validity  satisfied  by  this  theory — Twelve  irreconcilable 
accounts  in  ancient  writers  as  to  the  order  and  succession  of  the 
early  Popes  of  Rome — Legal  results  of  the  consequent  uncer- 
tainty— Legend  of  the  nomination  and  consecration  of  St. 
Linus  or  St.  Clement  by  St.  Peter  fatal  to  St.  Peter's  own  local 
episcopate — Legal  results  of  St.  Paul's  alleged  survivorship  of 
St.  Peter — Probable  solution  of  the  conflicting  lists  of  early 
Popes — Jewish  and  Christian  Churches  at  Rome — Dual 
Bishopric  probable — Petrine  succession  would  end  with  ex- 
1/     tinction  of  Jewish  Church  of  Rome — Results  of  the  inquiry 

thus  far    page  170 


CHAPTER  VL 

OF  THE  Papal  Monarchy. 

The  fifth  century  ^/transitional  period  in  secular  and  ecclesiastical 
politics — Crises  which  tended  to  increase  Papal  authority  at 
this  time — Recurrent  sophism  in  the  Ultramontane  argument 
— Appeal  of  St.  Chrysostom  to  Pope  Innocent  I. — Its  eviden- 
tial value  much  exaggerated — Milan  and  Aquileia  included  in 
the  appeal — ^ope  Innocent's  action  proves  his  lack  of  supreme 
jurisdiction  — His  large  claims  over  Eastern  Illyricum  and 
Gaul— His  Decretal  to  Decentiusof  Gubbio  attests  the  manu- 
facture of  a  factitious  tradition  at  Rome — Disproof  in  the 
contemporary  witness  of  St.  Jerome — Attempted  encroach- 
ment of  Innocent  upon  the  North  African  Churches — His 
conduct  during  the  Pelagian  controversy  disproves  the  Papal 
claim  to  supreme  teachership — ifnnocent  I.  the  real  founder  of 
the  Papal  monarchy — His  claims  promptly  resisted— Pope 
Zosimus  sides  with  the  Pelagians — Compelled  to  retract  by 
St.  Augustine  and  the  North  African  Church — !His  failure 
to  exercise  jurisdiction  in  Gaul — Letter  of  the  Church  of 
Carthage  to  Pope  Celestine  I.  in  424  in  direct  conflict  with 
the  Vatican  decrees — Third  General  Council  of  Ephesus — 


CONTENTS.  Xlll 

Convoked  by  the  two  Emperors — Its  convocation  in  itself  a 
disproof  of  Papal  supremacy — Evidence  of  the  growth  of 
Papal  authority  since  the  Council  of  Nice — The  Pope's  proxy 
entrusted  to  St.  Cyril  of  Alexandria,  President  of  the  Council 
— Papal  condemnation  of  Nestorius  disregarded-^Decrec  of 
the  Council  worded  by  the  Papal  Legates — Its  design  nullified 
by  other  Conciliar  utterances — Pope  Celestine's  doctrinal 
teaching  in  direct  conflict  with  that  of  Clement  XI. — Proof 
of  its  historical  authenticity — Leo  the  Great,  first  theologian 
among  the  Popes — Originator  of  preaching  in  the  churches  of 
Rome — Absence  of  oral  religious  teaching  at  Rome  till  the 
fifth  century  disproves  its  title  to  be  the  teaching  centre  of 
Christendom — Leo's  ambition  for  his  See — His  dealings  with 
St.  Hilary  of  Aries— Violates  the  canon  law,  and  persecutes 
St.  Hilary — Causes  which  made  such  lawlessness  more  feasible 
in  the  West  than  in  the  East — Leo  applies  to  the  Emperor  for 
an  edict  to  strengthen  his  hands  against  the  Gallican  Church 
— This  edict  the  beginning  of  Papal  supremacy  in  the  West 
— Not  applicable  to  Great  Britain — Leo's  rank  as  a  theolo- 
gian—Robber Synod  of  Ephesus — Indirectly  advances  Papal 
authority — Attempt  of  Leo  to  extend  his  power  over  the 
Eastern  Churches — Letter  of  Theodoret  in  illustration  of  the 
Greek  view  as  to  the  position  of  Rome — Fourth  General 
Council  of  Chalcedon  convoked  against  the  express  remon- 
strance of  the  Pope — He  is  obliged  to  accept  it  and  to  send 
legates — Gives  them  instructions  to  endeavour  to  depress  the 
See  of  Constantinople— Early  proceedings  of  the  Council — 
Papal  gains  and  losses — Attempt  to  get  the  Tome  of  St.  Leo 
received  without  discussion,  as  binding  in  virtue  of  its  Papal 
origin — Failure  of  the  scheme— Enactment  of  Canon  XXVIIL, 
on  the  nature  of  the  Roman  Primacy,  and  the  rank  of  Con- 
stantinople— Carried  in  opposition  to  the  legates — Anger  of 
Leo— His  attempt  to  quash  the  Canon — Bad  faith  of  his 
alleged  objections  to  it — His  acceptance  of  the  dogmatic  de- 
crees of  Chalcedon  destroys  his  case  against  the  Canon,  viewed 
as  involving  doctrine— The  Canon  still  valid,  and  virtually 
rcafBrmed  in  respect  of  the  precedency  of  Constantinople  by 
the  Roman  Church  at  a  later  time— Pope  Uil^px^lUs  en- 
deavours to  augment  Papal  power  in  Gaul— His  irregular 


XIV  THE    I'ETRINE    CLAIMb. 

interference  in  the  Spanish  Church— Pope  Simplicius— Pope 
Felix  III.  and  the  Emperor  Zeno — Felix  attempts  to  exercise 
jurisdiction  over  Acacius  of  Constantinople— Professes  to 
depose  him  from  his  rank — This  a  novel  departure  in  Church 
history— Felix  the  author  of  the  first  great  schism  in  the 
Catholic  body— Gelasius  I.  follovi's  in  the  steps  of  Felix  III. 
— Exorbitant  claims  made  by  him page  203 


CHAPTER  VII. 

/  Legal  Breaks  in  the  Chain  of  Prescription. 

Transfer  of  the  seat  of  the  Empire  to  Constantinople  favourable 
^to  the  growth  of  Papal  authority— The  statecraft  of  the  Em- 
pire more  ancient  and  disciplined  than  that  of  the  Church — 
The  conditions  of  the  struggle  between  Church  and  State  re-^ 
.versed  in  the  West  under  the  barbarian  kinglets— The  Church 
aspires  to  supremacy  in  temporal  affairs — Close  of  the  fifth 
century — Negotiations  of  Pope  Anastatius  II.  with  Constanti- 
nople— Disputed  election  of  Pope  Symmachus — The  dispute 
referred  to  Theodoric  the  Ostrogoth — Earlier  precedent  under 
Odoacer — Impeachment  of  Pope  vSymmachus — Synod  of  the 
"Incongruous  Acquittal  "— Ennodiusof  Pavia  on  the  "  here- 
ditary innocence  "  of  the  Popes — His  view  accepted  in  an 
Italian  vSynod — Breach  between  Pope  Symmachus  and  the 
Emperor  Anastatius  —  Recrudescence  of  Eutychianism — 
Appeal  of  the  Eastern  Bishops  to  Rome — Anastatius  com- 
pelled to  abandon  his  policy — Opens  communications  with 
Pope  Hormisda — The  Pope  endeavours  to  impose  hard  terms 
on  the  East — Accession  of  the  Emperor  Justin— He  forces  the 
Formulary  of  Hormisda  upon  the  clergy  of  the  Empire — 
Motive  of  his  action — He  persecutes  the  Arians — King  Theo- 
doric sends  Pope  John  I.  to  obtain  a  cessation  of  the  perse- 
cution— The  Pope  is  thrown  into  prison  on  his  return  to  Italy, 
and  dies   therein — Appointment  of  P'elix  IV.  as  Pope — Dis- 


CONTENTS.  XV" 

puted  election  of  Boniface  II. — He  attempts  to  nominate 
his  own  successor,  l)ut  fails — Unsuccess  of  the  Formulary  of 
Hormisda  in  the  East — Bribery  in  the  Roman  Church — Its 
hearing  on  the  Petrine  Claims — Pope  Hormisda  commits 
himself  to  heresy — Is  compelled  to  retract  by  the  concurrent 
action  of  Justinian  and  the  chief  theologians  of  the  time — 
Complimentary  language  of  Justinian  while  compelling  the 
Pope  to  retract — Pontificate  of  Agapetus — Evidence  afforded 
by  his  acts  as  to  the  meaning  of  Papal  appeals  to  the  autho- 
rity of  the  Canons — Agapetus  at  Constantinople — Election  of 
Pope  Sylverius — Plot  against  him  between  Vigilius  and  the 
Empress  Theodora' — Simoniacal  intrusion  of  Vigilius  into 
the  Papal  Chair — Murder  of  Pope  Sylverius— The  com- 
munion of  Vigilius  renounced  by  several  national  Churches — 
Intrusion  of  Pelagius  I. — His  repudiation  by  the  Western 
Churches — Schism  of  Aquileia — Failure  of  attempts  to  esta- 
blish prescription  for  Papal  authority  down  to  the  Pontificate 
of  CJregory  the  Great     /fagc  260 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

Final  Collapse  of  the  Papal  Succession. 

Steady  growth  of  Roman  influence  in  the  Western  Church — The 
Pope  must  produce  a  oVyVz/v  title  as  well  a  dc  facto  one — Nul- 
lity in  a  Pope's  title  voids  all  that  part  of  the  electorate 
to  the  Papacy  which  owes  its  franchise  to  him — A  doubtful 
Pope  is  no- Pope — What  constitutes  nullity — Citations  in  proof 
from  Canon  Law — Bull  of  Pope  Paul  IV. — The  earlier  cases 
of  nullity  not  subversive  of  the  whole  succession — Alleged 
reply  of  Dinoth  of  Bangor-Iscoed  to  St.  Augustine  of  Can- 
terbury— Proof  of  the  complicity  of  Pope  I  lonorius  in  heresy — 
Controversy  on  image-worship— Condemnation  of  Hadrian  I. 
and  Gregory  II.  by  a  commission  of  Gallican  Divines — Ponti- 
ficate of  Nicolas  I. — He  adopts  the  False  Decretals— The 


XVI  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  / 

Papacy  in  the  ninth  century — Pope  Formosus— His  posthu- 
mous trial  and  condemnation — Alternate  reversals  and  re- 
newals of  his  sentence  by  subsequent  Popes — Eleven  false 
Popes  intruded  for  sixty  successive  years  in  the  tenth  century 
—  Total  breach  with  the  older  line  of  succession — No  Petrinc 
line  possible  since  that  date — Second  era  of  intrusions  in  the 
eleventh  century — The  electorate  restricted  to  the  Cardinals 
by  Pope  Nicolas  11. — Motives  for  the  change  of  franchise — 
Its  practical  result  contrary  to  the  anticipated  one — Disputed 
elections  of  Innocent  II.  and  of  Alexander  III. — The  Papacy 
at  Avignon — Pi-obable  effect  of  non-residence  as  a  defect  in 
title — The  Great  Schism — All  the  Popes  elected  during  its 
continuance  doubtful — Councils  of  Pisa  and  Constance — 
Doubtful  election  of  Pope  Martin  V. — At  best  a  wholly  new 
departure,  constituting  a  new  Papacy  with  no  older  title — 
Simoniacal  elections  of  Innocent  VIII.,  Alexander  VI.,  and 
Julius  II.  destroyed  the  electorate,  as  all  the  Cardinals  who 
elected  Leo  X.  derived  their  title  from  one  or  another  of  the 
simoniacal  no-Popes — This  flaw  final  and  irremediable — No 
valid  election  since  1484 — Defect  not  made  good  by  the  ac- 
ceptance of  the  titular  Popes  by  the  Roman  Church — Sum- 
mary of  the  whole  case  against  the  Petrine  Claims page  304 


Table  of  Legal  Flaws  in  the  Papal  Succession  page  343 

Note  on  the  False  Decretals    pnge  347 


E  R  RATA. 


Page  38,  one  line  from  bottom, y^r  *' Ecclesie"  read  ^^ Ecclesid." 

Page  55,  four  lines  from  bottom, /or  "any"  read  "no." 

Page  132,  line  29,  after  "principal  Church,"  add  "  whence  priestly 
unity  has  its  origin." 

Page  159,  line  10,  dele  "  with  all  the  more  force    .     .     .     defactoP 
Same  page,  line  2^^  for  "  so  that  "  read  "  nay,  more." 
Same  page,  line  29,  after  "  that  purpose,"  insert  new  matter  : — 
*'  The  letter  of  Pope  Julius,  in  reply  to  the  Council  of  Antioch,  shows 
at  once  the  extent  and  the  limitations  of  the  Papal  claims  as  then  urged. 
He  writes  thus: 

•*  *  If,  on  the  whole,  some  fault  was  committed  by  those  persons,  the 
judgment  ought  to  have  taken  place  in  accordance  with  the  ecclesias- 
tical canon,  and  not  as  it  did  take  place.  Letters  should  have  been 
written  to  all  of  us,  that  so  a  just  sentence  might  be  decreed  by  all.  .  . 
And,  especially  as  regards  the  Church  of  Alexandria,  why  was  no  letter 
written  to  us  ?  Do  you  not  know  that  such  was  the  custom,  that  we 
should  first  be  written  to,  and  thus  a  just  sentence  might  be  decreed 
from  this  place?'  (St.  Athanasius,  Adv.  Arianos^  35)" 

Page  163,  Une  3,  after  **  Roman  Breviary  "  add  *'  (Aug    14)." 

Page  181,  line  21,  for  "338  "  read  "339." 

Page  181,  line  29,  after  **  Scaliger,"  mj-^r^  "with  whom  Bishop 
Lightfoot  substantially  agrees  (Smith,  Diet.  Christian  Biog,  II.  325, 
col.  ii.)." 

Page  182,  line  16,  insert  new  paragraph  between  (d)  and  (<?)  as 
under  : — 

(tf)  ' '  But  of  the  rest  that  accompanied  Paul  ....  Linus, 
whom  he  has  mentioned  in  his  Second  Epistle  to  Timothy  as  his 
companion  at  Rome,  has  been  before  shown  to  have  been  the  first  after 
Peter  that  obtained  the  episcopate  at  Rome  {Hist.  Eccl.  iii.  4)," 

Then,/^r(<r)  and  (/)  read  {J)  and  (^),  and/7r" These  six  passages" 
read  "  seven." 

Page  192,  line  21,  for  the  reference  in  paragraph  4,  "  Euseb.  Hist. 
Eccl.  iii.  21,"  read  **  iii.  2,  4,  21." 

Page  358,  col.  i.,  line  31, >r  "126"  read  "  127." 

Page  362,  col.  ii.,  line  2,  for  "  227  "  read  '*  225  n." 


THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE    LEGAL    EVIDENCE   OF    SCRIPTURE. 

Pius  IX.,  the  Pontiff  under  whose  auspices  was  completed 
the  building  of  Papal  autocracy  in  spiritual  matters, 
planned,  in  part  at  least,  by  Pope  Leo  I.  more  than  four- 
teen hundred  years  ago,  carried  on  by  the  genius  of 
Gregory  VII.,  by  the  lofty  ambition  of  Innocent  III.,  by 
the  more  worldly  policy  of  Boniface  VIII.,  and  diligently 
laboured  at  ever  since  the  first  beginning  of  the  Counter- 
Reformation  by  the  persistent  toil  of  the  Jesuit  body  from 
Bellarmine  to  Franzelin,  bequeathed  to  his  successor,  to 
whom  he  failed  to  hand  down  the  temporal  crown  he 
wore  himself,  a  more  absolute  spiritual  empire  than  he 
had  inherited  in  his  turn  from  Gregory  XYI.  One  thing 
is  clear,  that  the  Papal  claims  can  be  practically  advanced 
no  further,  as  their  logical  goal  has  been  attained,  and 
those  controversial  debates  which  formerly  ranged  over 
almost  the  whole  domain  of  theology  may  be  hencefor- 
ward concentrated  on  one  topic  alone,  since  whatever 
within  the  sphere  of  faith  and  morals  is  found  existing 
uncensured  in  the  Latin  Obedience  must  be  regarded 
as  having  the  sanction  of  infallibility  at  its  back,  and  as 
being  therefore  unassailable  by  loyal  Catholics  within  that 
fold,  and  by  all  external  opponents  who  are  not  pre- 
pared to  join  issue  on  the  preliminary  question.  And, 
notably,  the  controversy  between  the  Church  of  Rome  and 

u 

J 


2  THE   PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    I. 

the  Church  of  England,  though  it  has  not  really  changed 
since  it  originally  began,  has  been  limited,  since  the 
Vatican  Council  of  1870,  to  one  definite  issue,  so  far  as 
Roman  Catholic  controversialists  are  concerned.  That 
issue  is  the  formal  claim,  first  openly  put  forward  by  Boni- 
face VIII.  in  his  Bull  U?ia?Ji  Sanctam^  that  the  Roman 
Church  is  not  merely  "  the  mother  and  mistress  of  all 
Churches,"  the  largest,  most  august,  and  most  authoritative 
portion  of  the  Christian  body,  occupying,  so  to  speak,  the 
position  of  the  eldest  son  who  succeeds  to  the  titles  and  to 
the  entailed  estates  of  his  father — albeit  the  younger  have 
minor  independent  legacies  bequeathed  to  them — but  that 
she  is  the  whole  Church,  the  sole  legitimate  offspring  and 
heir,  so  that  wherever  in  the  course  of  Holy  Scripture  or  ot 
the  Fathers  "the  Church  "  is  spoken  of  as  clothed  with  any 
graces  or  privileges,  the  meaning  is  absolutely  limited  to 
the  Church  in  communion  with  and  under  the  authority 
of  the  Pope  of  Rome,  and  excludes  all  other  Christian 
societies  as  mere  sects  and  schisms  from  the  unity  of  the 
One  Body  of  Christ.^  All  other  pleas  which  are  raised  by 
Roman  controversialists  against  other  portions  of  Christen- 
dom are  purely  incidental  and  subordinate,  whether  urged 
against  their  orthodoxy,  their  possession  of  a  valid  ministry, 
or  their  practical  working.  No  unimpeachability  on  all 
these  heads  makes  the  least  difference  in  the  conduct 
of  the  Roman  Church  towards  them.  In  every  case  her 
policy  is  the  same — to  enter  on  their  domains,  to  deny  their 
claims  and  rights,  and  to  substitute  a  rival  organization  and 
worship  for  that  which  she  finds  established  amongst  them. 
This  conduct  she  justifies  on  the  alleged  ground  of  superior 
right,  conferred  by  special  Divine  privilege,  and  proved  by 
the  clear  witness  of  revelation,  as  well  in  Holy  Scripture  as 
in  the  historical  tradition  of  Christendom. 

1  This  conflicts  with  the  admission  of  Pope  Innocent  III.  :  "  That  is 
called  the  Church  Universal  which  consists  of  all  the  Churches,  and  is 
named  from  the  Greek  word,  Catholic.  And  in  this  sense  of  the  word 
the  Roman  Church  is  not  the  Church  Universal,  bu-t  a  part  of  the 
Church  Universal  "  (Ep.  ccix). 


CHAP.  I.]  LEGAL    EVIDENCE    OF    SCRIPTURE.  3 

It  will  simplify  the  inquiry  to  set  down  the  latest  authori- 
tative utterances  on  the  subject  of  revelation,  as  embodied 
in  the  decrees  of  the  Vatican  Council  itself : — 

1.  "  Supernatural  Revelation,  according  to  the  faith  of  the  Universal 
Church,  as  declared  by  the  Holy  Council  of  Trent,  is  contained  in 
written  books,  and  in  the  unwritten  traditions,  which,  having  been 
received  by  the  Apostles  from  the  mouth  of  Christ  himself,  or  having 
been,  as  it  were,  handed  down  from  the  Apostles  themselves  at  the 
dictation  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  have  arrived  even  unto  us." — Cone.  Trid. 
Sess.  iv.  Deer,  de  Can.  Seript. ) 

2.  "And  these  entire  books  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament,  with 
all  their  parts,  as  they  are  set  forth  in  the  decrees  of  the  said  Council, 
and  as  they  are  contained  in  the  old  Latin  Vulgate  edition,  are  to  be 
received  as  holy  and  canonical.  These  the  Church  holds  to  be  holy 
and  canonical,  not  because,  having  been  compiled  by  mere  human 
industry,  they  were  afterwards  approved  by  her  authority,  nor  merely 
because  they  contain  revelation  with  no  admixture  of  error,  but  be- 
cause, having  been  written  by  the  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  they 
have  God  for  their  author,  and  have  been  delivered  as  such  to  the 
Church  herself.  .  .  .  That  is  to  be  held  as  the  true  sense  of  Holy 
Scripture  which  Holy  Mother  Church  hath  held  and  does  hold,  to 
whom  it  belongs  to  judge  of  the  true  sense  and  interpretation  of 
Holy  Scripture,  and  therefore  that  it  is  permitted  to  no  one  to  interpret 
Holy  Scripture  contrary  to  this  sense,  nor,  likewise,  contrary  to  the 
unanimous  consent  of  the  Fathers." — {Cone.  Vatie.  Sess.  iii.  cap.  2.) 

The  last  clause  is  somewhat  obscurely  worded,  and  it  is 
well  to  cite  in  explanation  the  different  wording  of  the 
third  clause  of  the  Tridentine  Profession  of  Faith,  com- 
monly called  the  Creed  of  Pius  IV.,  which  runs  thus  : — 

"  I  also  admit  Holy  Scripture  according  to  that  sense  which  Holy 
Mother  Church  has  held  and  does  hold,  to  whom  it  belongs  to  judge 
of  the  true  sense  and  interpretation  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  ;  neither 
will  I  ever  take  and  interpret  them  othenuise  than  according  to  the 
utianimotis  consent  of  the  Fathers'^ 

This  creed  (seriously  differing  from  the  Vatican  decree 
in  the  clause  above  italicised)  has  to  be  formally  pro- 
fessed by  all  bishops  and  clergy  in  the  Roman  Church, 
and  by  all  lay  converts  who  are  sufficiently  educated  to 
understand  it. 

What  we  have  established  so  far  is,  that  any  claim  of 

B    2 


4  THE   PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [cHAP.    I. 

privilege,  in  order  to  be  accounted  Divine  in  the  Church  of 
Rome,  and  warranted  by  Revelation,  must  be  based  (a)  on 
Holy  Scripture,  (If)  on  the  historical  tradition  of  the  Church, 
(c)  on  the  unanimous  consent  of  the  Fathers.  This  excludes 
all  visions  and  quasi-revelations,  as  also  expressions  of  eccle- 
siastical opinion  later  than  the  time  of  St.  Bernard,  who  is 
accounted  the  last  of  the  Fathers,  and  who  died  in  1153,  as 
evidence  of  Divine  right,  which  must  be  proved  by  these 
three  concurrent  testimonies. 

The  claims  set  forward  in  the  Vatican  decrees  on  the 
Constitution  of  the  Church  are  as  follows  : — 

1.  "If  any  one  shall  say  that  blessed  Peter  the  Apostle  was  not 
appointed  by  Christ  the  Lord  the  Prince  of  all  the  Apostles,  and  the 
visible  Head  of  the  whole  Church  Militant ;  or  that  he  received  a 
primacy  of  honour  only,  and  not  directly  or  immediately  one  of  true 
and  proper  jurisdiction  from  the  same  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  let  him 
be  anathema." 

2.  "If  any  should  say  that  it  is  not  by  the  institution  of  Christ  the 
Lord  Himself,  or  by  Divine  right,  that  blessed  Peter  should  have  a 
perpetual  line  of  successors  in  the  primacy  over  the  Church  Universal, 
or  that  the  Roman  Pontiff  is  not  the  successor  of  blessed  Peter  in  this 
primacy,  let  him  be  anathema." 

3.  "None  may  reopen  the  judgment  of  the  Apostolic  See,  than 
whose  authority  there  is  none  greater  ;  nor  can  any  lawfully  review  its 
judgment ;  therefore  they  err  from  the  right  course  who  assert  that  it 
is  lawful  to  appeal  from  the  judgments  of  the  Roman  Pontiffs  to  a 
-General  Council,  as  to  an  authority  higher  than  that  of  the  Roman 
Pontiff.  If,  then,  any  shall  say  that  the  Roman  Pontiff  has  the  office 
merely  of  inspection  or  direction,  but  not  full  and  supreme  power  of 
jurisdiction  over  the  Universal  Church,  not  only  in  things  which 
belong  to  faith  and  morals,  but  also  in  those  which  relate  to  the 
discipline  and  government  of  the  Church  spread  throughout  the  world  ; 
or  assert  that  he  possesses  only  the  chief  part,  and  not  the  entire  ful- 
ness of  the  supreme  power  ;  or  that  this  power  which  he  enjoys  is  not 
ordinary  and  immediate,  both  over  each  and  all  the  Churches,  and 
over  each  and  all  the  pastors  and  faithful,  let  him  be  anathema." 

4.  "  The  wSacred  Council  approving,  we  teach  and  define  that  it  is  a 
dogma  divinely  revealed,  that  the  Roman  Pontiff,  when  he  speaks 
ex  cathedra,  that  is,  when  discharging  the  office  of  Pastor  and  Doctor 
of  all  Christians,  by  virtue  of  his  supreme  Apostolic  authority,  he 
defines  a  doctrine  regarding  faith  or  morals  to  be  held  by  the  Church 
Universal,  by  the  Divine  assistance  promised  to  him  in  blessed  Peter, 
is  possessed  of  that  infallibility  with  which  the  Divine  Redeemer 
willed  that  His  Church  should  be  endowed  for  defining  doctrine 


CHAP.  I.]  LEGAL    EVIDENCE   OF    SCRIPTURE.  5 

concerning  faith  or  morals ;  and  that,  therefore,  such  definitions  of 
the  Roman  Pontiff  are  irreformable  of  themselves,  and  not  from  tht 
consent  of  the  Church.  But  if  any  one— which  God  avert — presume 
to  contradict  this  our  definition,  let  him  be  anathema." 

In  proportion  as  these  claims  are  vast  and  startling,  the 
proofs  alleged  need  to  be  abundant,  clear,  and  conclusive, 
and  every  step  in  the  process  must  be  rigorously  established 
by  convincing  evidence  of  its  Divine  origin  and  institution, 
as  distinguished  from  mere  ecclesiastical  powers  of  human 
origin,  arrangement,  and  concession.  For  the  claim  is  that 
it  is  nothing  less  than  divinely  revealed,  and  that  not  by  any 
such  visions  and  miracles  as  are  alleged  on  behalf  of  par- 
ticular devotional  practices  in  modern  times,  but  by  the 
threefold  testimony  of  Scripture,  Church  history,  and  the 
writings  of  the  Fathers. 

Further,  as  the  entire  claim  of  Papal  Infallibility  rests 
avowedly  on  asserted  heirship  to  St.  Peter,  and  right  of 
succession  to  all  his  privileges,  while  no  allegation  is  made 
that  those  privileges  have  been  specifically  re-granted  to 
any  Pope  since  his  time,  much  less  increased,  developed, 
and  amplified  in  any  manner,  it  follows  that  the  Pope  can 
claim  no  more  than  is  plainly  discoverable  as  conferred 
upon  and  exercised  by  St.  Peter  himself  But  the  whole  of 
the  evidence  now  extant  upon  this  head  is  confined  to  the 
books  of  the  New  Testament.  The  few  meagre  and  uncer- 
tain notices  of  St.  Peter's  life  which  have  come  to  us  from 
uninspired  writers  do  not  touch  this  question  of  his  primacy, 
jurisdiction,  and  transmission  of  his  powers  at  all.  Conse- 
quently, the  Gospels,  Acts,  and  Epistles  contain  not  only 
his  whole  charter  of  privilege,  but  our  whole  means  of  ascer- 
taining what  he  actually  enjoyed  and  exercised  in  virtue  of 
that  charter. 

For  the  Roman  claims,  then,  to  have  any  firm  basis,  this 
evidence  must  establish  clearly  and  expressly,  and  not  by 
mere  possible  implication  or  inference,  the  following  points: — 

I.  That  St.  Peter  was  given  by  Christ  a  primacy,  not  of 
honour  and  rank  alone,  but  of  direct  and  sovereign  juris- 
diction over  all  the  other  Apostles. 


6  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [cHAP.    I. 

2.  That  this  primacy  was  not  limited  to  St.  Peter's 
person  only  for  his  lifetime,  but  was  conferred  on  him  with 
power  to  bequeath  it  to  his  successors. 

The  subsequent  question,  as  to  whether  he  did  actually  so 
bequeath  it  to  the  Bishops  of  Rome,  belongs  to  a  later  date 
in  Church  history  than  that  comprised  in  the  New  Testament 
period,  and  must  be  deferred  for  the  present.  It  is  our  busi- 
ness now  to  examine  the  charter,  conveyance,  and  exercise 
of  that  which  in  the  language  of  modern  Roman  theologians 
is  called  the  "  Privilege  of  Peter."  The  reason  why  the 
proof  of  it  needs  to  be  express  and  clear,  is  because 
privilege^  being  a  private  exception  to  the  usual  public 
course  of  law,  either  in  the  form  of  exemption  from  some 
burden  generally  imposed,  or  of  enjoyment  of  some  benefit 
generally  withheld,  is  essentially  an  invidious  thing,  and 
requires  fuller  proof  than  any  other  right  before  it  can  be 
allowed  as  valid.  Consequently,  the  Roman  Canon  Law 
(by  which  an  exclusively  Roman  claim  cannot  reasonably 
or  even  plausibly  refuse  to  be  tested^)  has  laid  down  the 
following  broad  rules  (amongst  others)  to  govern  all  cases 
of  the  sort:  — 

1.  The  authoritative  document  containing  the  privilege 
must  be  produced. — {Decret.  Greg.  IX. ;  lib.  v.  tit.  xxxiii.) 

2.  Its  wording  must  be  certain  and  manifest,  not  obscure 
or  donhl^uX.— (Decret.  Greg.  IX.  ;  lib.  v.  tit.  xl.  25.) 

3.  It  must  be  construed  in  the  most  strict  and  literal 
sense. — {I^eg.  Juris.  ;  vi.  and  xxviii.  ;  Fagnan.  de  Past,  et 
PrcBlat.  7;  Zypceus  de  Privil.  Cofisult.  i.) 

4.  If  personal,  it  follows  the  person  [not  the  office]  ; 
and  it  dies  with  the  person  named  in  it. — {Boniface  VIII. 
De  Regulis  Juris. ;  reg.  vii.) 

5.  It  may  not  be  extended  to  any  other  person,  because 
of  identity  or  similarity  of  reason,  unless  such  extension  be 

^  As  by  pleading  that  the  Petrine  privilege,  being  older  than  the 
Canon  Law,  cannot  be  subject  to  its  rules.  For  the  question  is  as  to 
the  devolution  of  this  privilege  to  the  reigning  Pope,  whose  claim  to 
it  must  be  subject  to  the  tests  of  contemporary  Canon  Law.  And  the 
claim  itself  was  not  formulated  definitely  till  the  fifth  century. 


CHAP.  I.]  LEGAI,    EVIDENCE   OF   SCRIPTURE.  7 

expressly  named  in  it. — {Decret.  Greg.  IX.  ;  lib.  v.  tit. 
xxxiii.  9.) 

6. — It  may  not  be  so  interpreted  as  to  deny,  interfere 
with,  or  encroach  upon  the  rights  and  privileges  of  another. 
— {Decret.  Greg.  IX. ;  lib.  v.  tit.  xxxiii.  4.) 

7.  It  is  forfeited  by  any  excess  or  abuse  in  its  exercise. — - 
{Decret.  ii.  xi.  3,  Ix.) 

Let  us  now  examine  the  evidence  of  Holy  Scripture,  not 
mainly  from  a  theological  point  of  view,  but  rather  from  a 
legal  one,  as  the  principal  document  tendered  in  proof  of 
claim.  Our  Lord's  charter  to  St.  Peter  is  held  to  be  con- 
tained in  three  clauses  of  the  Gospels  : — 

1.  "And  Jesus  answered  and  said  unto  him,  Blessed  art  thou, 
Simon  Bar-jona  :  for  flesh  and  blood  hath  not  revealed  it  unto  thee,  but 
My  Father  which  is  in  heaven.  And  I  say  also  unto  thee,  That  thou 
art  Peter,  and  upon  this  rock  I  will  build  My  church  ;  and  the  gates 
of  hell  shall  not  prevail  against  it.  And  I  will  give  unto  thee  the 
keys  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven :  and  whatsoever  thou  shalt  bind  on 
earth  shall  be  bound  in  heaven  :  and  whatsoever  thou  shalt  loose  on 
earth  shall  be  loosed  in  heaven." — St.  Matthew  xvi.  17-19. 

2.  '*  And  the  Lord  said,  Simon,  Simon,  behold,  Satan  hath  desired 
to  have  you,  that  he  may  sift  you  as  wheat  :  But  I  have  prayed  for 
thee,  that  thy  faith  fail  not  :  and  when  thou  art  converted,  strengthen 
thy  brethren."— St.  Luke  xxii.  31,  32. 

3.  "  So  when  they  had  dined,  Jesus  said  to  Simon  Peter,  Simon, 
son  of  Jonas,  lovest  thou  me  more  than  these  ?  He  saith  unto  Him, 
Yea,  Lord ;  Thou  knowest  that  I  love  Thee,  He  saith  unto  him, 
Feed  My  lambs.  He  saith  to  him  again  the  second  time,  Simon, 
son  of  Jonas,  lovest  thou  Me?  He  saith  to  Him,  Yea,  Lord  ;  Thou 
knowest  that  I  love  Thee.  He  saith  unto  him,  Feed  My  sheep.  He 
Faith  unto  him  the  third  time,  Simon,  son  of  Jonas,  lovest  thou  Me? 
Peter  was  grieved,  because  He  said  unto  him  the  third  time,  Lovest 
thou  Me  ?  And  he  said  unto  Him,  Lord,  Thou  knowest  all  things ; 
Thou  knowest  that  I  love  Thee.  Jesus  saith  unto  him,  Feed  My 
sheep."— St.  John  xxi.  15-17. 

This  is  the  sum  of  the  charter.  If  we  look  somewhat 
more  minutely  into  it,  we  shall  find  that  certain  portions  of 
it  are  not  peculiar  to  St.  Peter,  but  are  common  to  others. 
First  we  are  told  that  in  what  appears  to  be  the  interval 
between  St  Peter's  going  away  to  pay  the  tribute  money  for 
Christ  and  himself  (St.  Matthew  xvii.  27)  and  his  return  to 


8  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  I. 

the  Other  Apostles,  when  he  put  his  question  to  Christ  on  the 
forgiveness  of  injuries,  our  Lord  conferred  the  same  power 
of  binding  and  loosing  on  the  remaining  Apostles,  apart 
from  St.  Peter,  saying  : — 

*'  Verily,  I  say  unto  you,  Whatsoever  ye  shall  bind  on  earth  shall 
be  bound  in  heaven  :  and  whatsoever  ye  shall  loose  on  earth  shall  be 
loosed  in  heaven." — St.  Matthew  xviii.  i8  ; 

and  again  bestowed  it  on  all  the  Apostles,  collectively,  after 
His  Resurrection — 

' '  Then  said  Jesus  to  them  again,  Peace  be  unto  you  :  as  My 
Father  hath  sent  Me,  even  so  send  I  you.  And  when  He  had  said 
this,  He  breathed  on  them,  and  saith  unto  them,  Receive  ye  the  Holy 
Ghost  :  Whosesoever  sins  ye  remit,  they  are  remitted  unto  them  ; 
and  whosesoever  sins  ye  retain,  they  are  retained." — St.  John  xx. 
21-23. 

Accordingly,  the  clause  as  to  binding  and  loosing  in  St. 
Matthew  xvi.  19  is  no  part  of  the  especial  privilege  of 
Peter,  and  constitutes  no  difference  between  him  and  the 
remaining  Apostles. 

The  second  passage,  that  from  St.  Luke,  so  far  from 
exalting  St.  Peter,  actually  puts  him  below  the  level  of  his 
colleagues,  as  the  context  shows.  All  of  them  are  to  be 
tried  and  sifted  by  Satan  like  wheat.  Peter  is  the  only  one 
whose  actual  fall  and  denial  of  his  Lord  is  foretold — 
cowardly  flight  being  the  worst  fault  of  the  other  Apostles 
— and  thus  he  is  the  only  one  who  stands  in  need  of  "  con- 
version." And  he  is  bidden,  when  this  necessary  repent- 
ance and  change  have  taken  place  in  himself,  to  support, 
by  his  newly-revived  zeal,  his  yet  unfallen  brethren,  lest 
they  should  sin  as  he  had  just  done.  To  fortify  them  by 
confession  of  his  own  weakness  is  in  no  respect  akin  to 
exercising  authority  over  them. 

The  third  passage  (apart  from  the  difficulty  that  in  the 
only  one  place  of  Holy  Writ  where  the  Apostles  are 
spoken  of  as  "  sheep,"  St.  Peter  is  included  amongst  them, 
and  not  separately  named  as  their  shepherd: — "Behold  I 
send  you  forth  as  sheep  in  the  midst  of  wolves,"  St. 
Matthew   x.    16)   in   like   manner  confers  no  exceptional 


CHAP.  I.]  LEGAL    EVIDENCE   OF   SCRIPTURE.  9 

privilege,  because  we  have  it  twice  attributed  to  the 
ordinary  ministers  of  the  Church — the  Elders,  far  below 
the  Apostles  in  power  and  dignity,  while  one  of  these  two 
attributions  is  made  by  St.  Peter  himself.  The  clauses  are, 
first,  St.  Paul's  address  to  the  Elders  of  the  Church  at 
Miletus: — 

"Take  heed  therefore  unto  yourselves,  and  to  all  the  flock,  over 
the  which  the  Holy  Ghost  hath  made  you  overseers,  to  feed  the 
church  of  God,  which  He  hath  purchased  with  His  own  blood." — 
Acts  XX.  28 ; 

and  next,  St.  Peter's  similar  exhortation  : — 

"The  elders  which  are  among  you  I  exhort,  who  am  also  an  elder, 
and  a  witness  of  the  sufferings  of  Christ,  and  also  a  partaker  of  the 
glory  that  shall  be  revealed  :  Feed  the  flock  of  God  which  is  among 
you,  taking  the  oversight  thereof,  no{  by  constraint,  but  willingly ; 
not  for  filthy  lucre,  but  of  a  ready  mind  ;  neither  as  being  lords  over 
God's  heritage,  but  being  ensamples  to  the  flock." — i  St.  Peter  v.  1-3. 

And,  in  truth,  part  of  the  immediate  context  of  St.  John 
xxi.  1 7,  which  has  been  generally  overlooked  in  this  con- 
nexion, furnishes  incidental  but  adequate  disproof  of  the 
Ultramontane  gloss : — 

•'Then  Peter,  turning  about,  seeth  the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved 
following  ;  which  also  leaned  on  His  breast  at  supper,  and  said.  Lord, 
which  is  he  that  betrayeth  Thee  ?  Peter  seeing  him,  saith  to  Jesus, 
Lord,  and  what  shall  this  man  do?  Jesus  saith  unto  him.  If  I  will 
that  he  tarry  till  I  come,  what  is  that  to  thee?  follow  thou  Me." — 
St.  John  xxi.  20-22. 

It  is  obvious  that  if  St.  Peter  had  received  jurisdiction  over 
St.  John  only  a  few  minutes  before,  his  question  was  per- 
fectly legitimate  and  reasonable,  and  merited  a  reply,  as 
being  his  concern,  because  a'ffecting  one  for  whom  he  had 
been  just  made  responsible.  But  the  answer  he  actually 
receives  can  denote  nothing  short  of  St.  John's  entire  inde- 
pendence, and  the  restriction  of  St.  Peter's  own  commission 
to  attending  to  his  own  specific  and  limited  share  of 
Apostolic  work,  with  no  right  of  control  over  St.  John. 

There  remains,  therefore,  so  far,  as  the  whole  charter  of 
special  Petrine  privilege,  only  the  one  passage : — 


10  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [cHAP  I. 

"And  I  say  also  unto  thee,  That  thou  art  Peter,  and  upon  this 
rock  I  will  build  My  Church  ;  and  the  gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail 
against  it.  And  I  will  give  unto  thee  the  keys  of  the  kingdom  of 
heaven." — St.  Matthew  xvi.  i8. 

But  before  we  enter  on  the  question  of  its  interpretation,  to 
be  considered  later,  even  if  we  take  St.  Peter  to  be  the  rock, 
it  appears  that  even  this  title  does  not  stand  alone  in  such 
sort  as  to  constitute  a  gift  of  sovereign  authority.  For  this 
same  attribute  of  being  foundations  of  the  Church  is  in  two 
other  places  ascribed  to  the  Apostles  generally,  once  by 
St.  Paul:— 

**  Now  therefore  ye  are  no  more  strangers  and  foreigners,  but 
fellow-citizens  with  the  saints,  and  of  the  household  of  God  ;  and  are 
built  upon  the  foundation  of  the  Apostles  and  Prophets,  Jesus  Christ 
Himself  being  the  chief  corner  stone  ;  in  Whom  all  the  building  fitly 
framed  together  groweth  unto  an  holy  temple  in  the  Lord." — Eph.  i. 
19-21; 

and  again  by  St.  John  : — 

"  And  the  wall  of  the  city  had  twelve  foundations,  and  in  them  the 
names  of  the  twelve  Apostles  of  the  Lamb  " — Rev.  xxi.  14  ; 

where,  moreover,  it  is  not  unworthy  of  notice,  that  the  ^rsf 
stone,  a  jasper,  is  much  inferior  in  beauty  and  value  to 
some  of  the  remainder,  as  the  sapphire,  emerald,  and 
chrysolite,  which  severally  form  the  second,  fourth,  and 
seventh  foundations. — Rev.  xxi.  19,  20.  As  to  the  clause 
about  the  power  of  the  Keys,  see  later,  Chap.  II. 

Nevertheless,  as  the  whole  New  Testament  ought,  for 
the  purposes  of  this  inquiry,  be  construed  as  .a  single 
document,  there  may  be  other  expressions  and  indications 
in  it  from  which  the  extent  of  the  Petrine  charter  may  be 
reasonably  inferred,  and  if  a  collation  of  them  give  any 
more  specific  authority  to  St.  Peter  than  is  visible  thus  far, 
it  must  be  read  into  and  incorporated  with  that  charter. 
Conversely,  if  the  additional  evidence  point  to  a  strict  and 
narrow  construction,  or  even  to  further  limitation,  of  it, 
that  too  must  needs  be  taken  as  conditioning  its  terms. 

The  first  piece  of  evidence,  then,  is  that  immediately 
after  the  bestowal  by  Christ  of  whatever  gift  or  privilege 


CHAP.    I.]  LEGAL   EVIDENCE   OF   SCRIPTURE.  IT 

is  conferred  by  St.  Matthew  xvi.  i8,  19,  and  most  pro- 
bably in  the  course  of  the  very  same  conversation,  as 
appears  from  a  comparison  of  St.  Mark  viii.  27-34,  by 
far  the  sternest  lebuke  ever  uttered  to  an  Apostle  by  Christ 
falls  on  St.  Peter  :— 

**  From  that  time  forth  began  Jesus  to  shew  unto  His  disciples  how 
that  he  must  go  unto  Jerusalem,  and  suffer  many  things  of  the  elders 
and  chief  priests  and  scribes,  and  be  killed,  and  be  raised  again  the 
third  day.  Then  Peter  took  Him,  and  began  to  rebuke  Him,  saying, 
Be  it  far  from  Thee,  Lord  :  this  shall  not  be  unto  Thee.  But  He 
turned,  and  said  unto  Peter,  Get  thee  behind  Me,  Satan  :  thou  art  an 
offence  unto  Me  :  for  thou  savourest  not  the  things  that  be  of  God, 
but  those  that  be  of  men." — St.  Matthew  xvi.  21-23. 

This  proves  at  the  least  that  St.  Peter  did  not  acquire  in 
virtue  of  that  previous  charter  the  gift  of  infallibility,  nor 
even  that  of  not  directly  contravening  the  will  of  God.  And 
so  evident  is  this  deduction,  that  a  modern  infallibilist  has 
endeavoured  to  escape  from  it  by  alleging  that  the  Peter  of 
the  second  clause  was  a  different  person  from  the  Simon 
Bar-jona  or  Peter  of  the  first  one. 

Next,  if  the  passage  St.  Matthew  xvi.  1 7-20,  be,  as  it  is  from 
a  Roman  Catholic  point  of  view,  one  of  the  most  significant 
and  important  items  of  Divine  revelation,  we  are  entitled 
to  expect  to  find  it  emphasized  by  the  other  Evangelists. 

If  it  lay  outside  their  plan,  and  they  made  no  reference 
whatever  to  this  conversation  at  C?esarea  Philippi,  no  con- 
clusion either  way  could  be  drawn  from  their  silence,  any 
more  than  from  St.  John's  omission  of  the  Last  Supper  or 
the  Ascension. 

But  St.  Mark  and  St.  Luke  both  do  embody  St.  Peter's 
confession  of  Christ  in  their  narratives,  yet  leave  out  entirely 
all  reference  to  the  words  "Thou  art  Peter,"  &c.,— St. 
Mark  viii.  27-34,  St.  Luke  ix.  18-23.  Hence  it  is  clear 
that  in  their  minds  the  important  part  of  the  conversation 
was  the  declaration  of  our  Lord's  person  and  office,  not 
the  definition  and  scope  of  St.  Peter's  privilege.  Nor  is 
this  all.  The  received  tradition  of  the  Roman  Church  is 
that  St.  Mark  was  the  disciple  of  St.  Peter,  and  wrote  his 
Gospel  by  St  Peter's  directions  and  under  his  supervision. 


12  THE   PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    I. 

But  St.  Mark,  while  omitting  the  words  "  Thou  art  Peter," 
&c.,  inserts  the  words  "  Get  thee  behind  me,  Satan ;  for 
thou  savourest  not  of  the  things  that  be  of  God,  but  the 
things  that  be  of  men." — St.  Mark  viii.  33. 

The  inevitable  inference  from  this  most  weighty  fact  is 
that  St.  Peter  himself  did  not  consider  the  words  of  Christ 
in  St.  Matthew  xvi.  17-20  necessary  to  be  communicated 
by  St.  Mark  to  those  for  whom  his  Gospel  was  written,  and 
therefore  it  is  clear  that  he  did  not  attach  the  meaning  to 
them  which  Roman  controversialists  now  allege  as  the  true 
one  ;  since,  had  he  done  so,  he  was  bound  for  the  highest 
reasons  to  make  his  peculiar  commission  known,  precisely 
as  an  ambassador  is  required  to  produce  his  credentials, 
and  the  governor  of  a  colony  to  exhibit  his  patent  from  the 
Crown,  at  his  entry  upon  his  office.  Nor  can  such  a 
breach  of  duty  as  silence  under  such  circumstances  be 
excused  by  attributing  it  to  St.  Peter's  humility,  because 
the  truest  humility  is  implicit  obedience  to  God's  com- 
mands, whether  tending  to  exalt  or  abase  him  to  whom 
the  command  is  given. 

Further,  St.  Peter  uses  language  in  his  own  Epistles 
^  which  implies,  if  not  ignorance  on  his  part  as  to  any  special 
privilege  attaching  to  his  own  person,  at  any  rate  absti- 
nence from  pressing  it,  and  that  to  the  extent  of  employing 
phrases  which  seem  to  exclude  it,  so  far  as  it  is  held  to 
be  based  either  on  St.  Matthew  xvi.  i8,  or  on  St.  John 
xxi.  15-17.  For  in  the  first  place,  he  seems  to  recognise 
no  foundation  of  the  Church  save  Christ  himself : — 

"If  so  be  ye  have  tasted  that  the  Lord  is  gracious.  To  Whom 
coming,  as  unto  a  living  stone,  disallowed  indeed  of  men,  but  chosen 
of  God,  and  precious,  ye  also,  as  lively  stones,  are  built  up  a  spiritual 
house,  an  holy  priesthood,  to  offer  up  spiritual  sacrifices,  acceptable 
to  God  by  Jesus  Christ.  Wherefore  also  it  is  contained  in  the  scrip- 
ture, Behold  I  lay  in  Sion  a  chief  corner  stone,  elect,  precious  :  and 
ihe  that believeth  on  Him  shall  not  be  confounded." — i  St.  Peter 
i.  3-6. 

And  in  the  next  place  he  names  only  one  Chief  Shepherd 
and  Bishop — 


CHAP.  I.]  LEGAL    EVIDENCE   OF    SCRIPTURE.  1 3 

"  Who  His  own  self  bare  our  sins  in  His  own  body  on  the  tree,  that 
we,  being  dead  to  sins,  should  live  unto  righteousness  :  by  Whose 
stripes  ye  were  healed.  For  ye  were  as  sheep  going  astray  ;  but  are 
now  returned  unto  the  Shepherd  and  Bishop  of  your  souls." — i  Peter 
ii.  24,  25. 

With  this  may  be  contrasted  the  language  of  Pius  IX.,  who, 
in  a  public  address,  applied  to  himself  the  text  St.  John 
xiv.  6, — "I  am  the  Way,  the  Truth,  and  the  Life,"i  words 
which  cannot  by  any  accommodation  be  applied  save  to 
Him  Who  spoke  them,  as  two  of  them  denote  incommunic- 
able attributes ;  whereas  St.  Peter  might  have  found  justi- 
fication for  claiming  the  titles  of  "  Foundation  of  the 
Church "  and  "  Chief  Shepherd,"  as  his  own,  had  he 
thought  they  belonged  to  him. 

The  next  question  to  consider  is,  what  additional  light 
the  lang^iage  of  our  Lord  in  the  Gospels  sheds  on  the 
extent  and  nature  of  the  privilege  of  Peter.  First,  then, 
soon  after  the  utterance  in  St.  Matthew  xvi.  i8,  and  just 
before  the  bestowal  of  the  power  of  binding  and  loosing 
on  all  the  Apostles  in  St.  Peter's  absence,  the  question  of 
precedence  in  Christ's  kingdom  is  raised,  and  is  answered 
by  our  Lord  in  terms  inconsistent  with  the  opinion  that 
the  disciples  understood  Him  to  have  already  settled  that 
point,  or  that  He  had  in  fact  done  so,  whether  they  under- 
stood Him  or  not : — 

**At  the  same  time  came  the  disciples  unto  Jesus,  saying,  Who  is 
the  greatest  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven?  And  Jesus  called  a  little 
child  unto  Him,  and  set  him  in  the  midst  of  them,  and  said,  Verily  I 
say  unto  you,  Except  ye  be  converted,  and  become  as  little  children, 
ye  shall  not  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  Whosoever  therefore 
shall  humble  himself  as  this  little  child,  the  same  is  greatest  in  the 
kingdom  of  heaven." — St.  Matt,  xviii.  1-4. 

A  little  later  Christ  puts  all  the  Apostles  on  the  same  level : — 

**  Then  answered  Peter  and  said  unto  Him,  Behold,  we  have  for- 
saken all,  and  followed  Thee  ;  what  shall  we  have  therefore  ?  And 
Jesus  said  unto  them.  Verily  I  say  unto  you.  That  ye  which  have 
followed  Me,  in  the  regeneration  when  the  Son  of  man  shall  sit  in  the 

*  Reported  in  the  Observatetir  Catholique  oi  April  i,  1866,  page  357 ; 
textttally  cited  by  Quirinus,  Letter  XXIII.  (p.  285  of  English  version). 


14  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    I. 

throne  of  His  glory,  ye  also  shall  sit  upon  twelve  thrones,  judging  the 
twelve  tribes  of  Israel." — St.  Matt.  xix.  27,  28. 

This  text  has  a  further  bearing  on  the  question,  as  estab- 
lishing that  Christ's  grants  are  conditional  and  forfeitable, 
not  indefeasible,  since  one  of  the  twelve  to  whom  these 
words  were  spoken  was  Judas  Iscariot. 

Thirdly,  comes  the  application  of  the  mother  of  SS. 
James  and  John  on  behalf  of  her  children  : — 

"Then  came  to  Him  the  mother  of  Zebedee's  children  with  her 
sons,  worshipping  Him,  and  desiring  a  certain  thing  of  Him.  And 
He  said  unto  her,  What  wilt  thou  ?  She  saith  unto  Him,  Grant  that 
these  my  two  sons  may  sit,  the  one  on  Thy  right  hand,  and  the  other 
on  the  left,  in  Thy  kingdom.  But  Jesus  answered  and  said.  Ye  know 
not  what  ye  ask.  Are  ye  able  to  drink  of  the  cup  that  I  shall  drink 
of,  and  to  be  baptized  with  the  baptism  that  I  am  baptized  with  ? 
They  say  unto  him,  We  are  able.  And  He  saith  unto  them,  Ye  shall 
drink  indeed  of  My  cup,  and  be  baptized  with  the  baptism  that  I  am 
baptized  with  :  but  to  sit  on  My  right  hand,  and  on  My  left,  is  not 
Mine  to  give,  but  it  shall  be  given  to  them  for  whom  it  is  prepared  of 
My  Father.  And  when  the  ten  heard  it,  they  were  moved  with  indig- 
nation against  the  two  brethren.  But  Jesus  called  them  unto  Him, 
and  said,  Ye  know  that  the  princes  of  the  Gentiles  exercise  dominion 
over  them,  and  they  that  are  great  exercise  authority  upon  them. 
But  it  shall  not  be  so  among  you  :  but  whosoever  will  be  great  among 
you,  let  him  be  your  minister ;  and  whosoever  will  be  chief  among 
you,  let  him  be  your  servant ;  even  as  the  Son  of  man  came  not  to 
be  ministered  unto,  but  to  minister,  and  to  give  His  life  a  ransom  for 
many."— St.  Matt.  xx.  20-28. 

Here  it  is  to  be  noticed  that  the  request  of  Salome  was  not 
for  a  mere  honorary  distinction,  but  for  substantial  office 
and  authority,  since  in  Eastern  kingdoms,  even  to  this  day, 
the  two  principal  ministers  of  State  ranking  next  in  authority 
to  the  monarch  are  styled  "  Vizir  of  the  right  hand  "  and 
"Vizir  of  the  left  hand."  Obviously,  Christ's  answer,  on 
the  Roman  hypothesis,  must  have  been  that  He  had  already 
given  aw^ay  the  right-hand  post  to  St.  Peter,  and  did  not 
intend  to  create  a  left-hand  one.  What  He  does  say  is  to 
declare  explicitly  that  no  one  of  them  should  exercise 
authority  over  the  others,  consequently  that  He  had  tiot 
given  St.  Peter  any  jurisdiction  over  the  Apostolic  college. 
Nevertheless,  so  persistent  amongst  the  Twelve  was  the 


CHAP.    I.]  LEGAL   EVIDENCE    OF    SCRIPTURE.  1 5 

carnal  way  of  viewing  Christ's  kingdom  as  modelled  on  the 
pattern  of  earthly  monarchies,  that  this  very  same  question 
crops  up  again  at  the  Last  Supper — a  time  when  a  peculiar 
solemnity  and  sacredness  attaches  to  every  word  of  Christ, 
and  when,  if  ever,  we  might  expect  Him  to  nominate  the 
chief  who  should  rule  His  Church  after  His  departure. 
What  we  do  find,  however,  is  a  precise  reiteration  of  His 
former  explanation,  a  renewal  of  His  former  promise  of 
equal  dignity : — 

"And  there  was  also  a  strife  among  them,  which  of  them  should 
be  accounted  the  greatest.  And  He  said  unto  them,  The  Kings  of  the 
Gentiles  exercise  lordship  over  them  ;  and  they  that  exercise  authority 
upon  them  are  called  benefactors.  Eut  ye  shall  not  be  so  :  but  he 
that  is  greatest  among  you,  let  him  be  as  the  younger  ;  and  he  that  is 
chief,  as  he  that  doth  serve.  For  whether  is  greater,  he  that  sitteth 
at  meat,  or  he  that  serveth  ?  is  not  he  that  sitteth  at  meat  ?  but  I  am 
among  you  as  he  that  serveth.  Ye  are  they  which  have  continued 
with  Me  in  My  temptations.  And  I  appoint  unto  you  a  kingdom,  as 
My  Father  hath  appointed  unto  Me  ;  that  ye  may  eat  and  drink  at 
My  table  in  My  kingdom,  and  sit  on  thrones  judging  the  twelve  tribes 
of  Israel." — St.  Luke  xxii.  24-30. 

After  supper,  He  says,  still  marking  their  perfect  equahty 
"I  am  the  vine,  ye  are  the  branches." — St.  John  xv.  5. 

The  last  utterance  of  Christ  which  directly  bears  upon 
the  question  of  privilege  is  the  final  commission  to  the 
Apostles  before  the  Ascension  : — 

"  Then  the  eleven  disciples  went  away  into  Galilee,  into  a  moun- 
tain where  Jesus  had  appointed  them.  And  when  they  saw  Him,  they 
worshipped  Him  ;  but  some  doubted.  And  Jesus  came  and  spake 
unto  them,  saying,  All  power  is  given  unto  Me  in  heaven  and  in 
earth.  Go  ye  therefore,  and  teach  all  nations,  baptizing  them  in  the 
name  of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost :  teaching 
them  to  observe  all  things  whatsoever  I  have  commanded  you  :  and, 
lo,  I  am  with  you  alway,  even  unto  the  end  of  the  world.  Amen." 
St.  Matt,  xxviii.  16-20. 

Here,  as  before,  no  distinction  is  made  between  them,  and 
no  hint  is  given  that  they  should  look  to  St.  Peter  as  their 
chief. 

There  is,  however,  yet  another  important  saying  of  our 
Lord's  which  touches  the  subject  from  another  side,  and 
not  less  significantly. 


l6  THE    PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    I. 

It  is  to  be  remembered,  that  as  the  Gospel  is  the  har- 
monious development  and  spiritual  fulfilment  of  the  typical 
Mosaic  Law,  we  are  entitled  to  look  for  some  parallel  in 
the  Gospel  for  every  salient  type  or  incident  under  the  Law, 
with,  however,  this  weighty  and  invariable  difference,  that 
the  antitype  is  never  identical  with  the  type,  but  belongs  to 
a  less  carnal  and  more  spiritual  order,  so  that  there  is  never 
an  exact  reproduction  of  the  earlier  ordinance  ;  as  the 
Holy  Eucharist,  when  compared  with  the  animal  sacrifices, 
exemplifies,  and  still  more  the  substitution  of  Christ  for 
the  Levitical  High  Priests  (Heb.  vi.  20;  vii.  15-28;  viii. 
1-6).  Now  the  two  greatest  Old  Testament  types  of  Christ 
are  Moses,  as  lawgiver  and  prophet,  and  David,  as  king  and 
prophet.  Each  of  these  takes  measures  to  appoint  his  suc- 
cessor before  his  own  death,  and  to  secure  his  acceptance 
by  the  nation.  The  delegation  by  Moses  to  Joshua  is 
recorded  in  Numbers  xxvii.  15-23,  and  in  Deut.  xxxi.  23  ; 
the  action  of  David  is  recorded  in  i  Kings  i.  32-35  ;  and 
in  each  case  the  action  is  most  formal  and  exphcit. 

Now  these  two  examples  have  three  points  in  common  : 
{a)  they  take  place  just  before  the  deaths  of  the  chief 
actors;  (^)  they  are  express  and  unambiguous  in  their 
designation  of  the  successor's  name  ;  {c)  they  are  attended 
by  public  ceremonial  solemnities.  And  we  are  justified,  by 
the  analogy  of  faith,  in  looking  for  some  cognate  action  on 
Christ's  part,  only  this  analogy  would  be  violated,  not 
observed,  by  a  precise  agreement  in  the  human  element  of 
the  proceeding. 

Accordingly,  we  do  find  it,  and  exactly  in  the  higher 
plane  to  be  expected.  On  the  night  before  His  death, 
Christ  formally  designates  His  Vicar  on  earth,  and  that  in 
the  most  precise  and  definite  terms,  to  the  necessary 
exclusion  of  any  other  : — 

"And  I  will  pray  the  Father,  and  He  shall  give  you  another 
Comforter,  that  He  may  abide  with  you  for  ever  ;  even  the  Spirit  of 
truth  ;  whom  the  world  cannot  receive,  because  it  seeth  Him  not, 
neither  knoweth  Him  :  but  ye  know  Him  ;  for  He  dwelleth  with  you, 
and  shall  be  in  you But  the  Comforter,  which  is  the  Holy 


CHAP.    I.]  LEGAL   EVIDENCE    OF    SCRIPTURE.  1 7 

Ghost,  Whom  the  Father  will  send  in  my  name,  He  shall  teach  you 
all  things,  and  bring  all  things  to  your  remembrance,  whatsoever  I 

have  said  unto  you But  when  the  Comforter  is  come,  Whom 

I  will  send  unto  you  from  the  Father,  even  the  Spirit  of  truth,  which 
proceedeth  from  the  Father,  He  shall  testify  of  Me Never- 
theless I  tell  you  the  truth  ;  It  is  expedient  for  you  that  I  go  away  : 
for  if  I  go  not  away,  the  Comforter  will  not  come  unto  you  ;  but  if  I 

depart,  I  will  send  Him  unto  you Howbeit  when  He,  the 

Spirit  of  truth,  is  come.  He  will  guide  you  into  all  truth  :  for  He 
shall  not  speak  of  Himself;  but  whatsoever  He  shall  hear,  that  shall 
He  speak  :  and  He  will  show  you  things  to  come.  He  shall  glorify 
Me  :  for  He  shall  receive  of  Mine,  and  shall  show  it  unto  you.  All 
tilings  that  the  Father  hath  are  Mine  :  therefore  said  I,  that  He  shall 
take  of  Mine,  and  show  it  unto  you." — St.  John  xiv.  i6,  17,  26 ;  xv. 
26;  xvi.  7,  13,  14,  15. 

The  formal  installation  of  this  Vicar  of  Christ  is  also 
recorded  : — 

"And  when  the  day  of  Pentecost  was  fully  come,  they  were  all 
with  one  accord  in  one  place.  And  suddenly  there  came  a  sound 
from  heaven  as  of  a  rushing  mighty  wind,  and  it  filled  all  the  house 
where  they  were  sitting.  And  there  appeared  unto  them  cloven 
tongues  like  as  of  fire,  and  it  sat  upon  each  of  them.  And  they  were 
all  filled  with  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  began  to  speak  with  other  tongues, 
as  the  Spirit  gave  them  utterance." — Acts  ii.  1--4. 

The  parallel  thus  holds  good  in  all  the  three  particulars 
common  to  the  appointments  of  Joshua  and  Solomon,  be- 
sides fulfilling  the  further  condition  essential  to  its  Gospel 
character,  of  belonging  to  a  higher  order  of  things,  inas- 
much as  a  Divine  Being — not  a  mere  man,  however  com 
missioned — is  sent  to  occupy  the  place  of  the  departed 
Lawgiver  and  King.  The  nomination  of  any  Apostle  would 
have  left  the  act  of  Christ  on  exactly  the  same  level  as 
those  of  Moses  and  David, — or  rather,  on  a  much  lower 
one,  since  the  interval  between  Him  and  St.  Peter  is  much 
vaster  than  that  between  Moses  and  Joshua,  or  David  and 
Solomon — and  thus  it  would  have  provided  no  real  anti- 
type for  the  type  and  shadow  under  the  old  Covenant. 

This  being  so,  to  demand,  much  more  to  constitute, 
what  the  Vatican  Council  styles  a  "  Visible  Head  of  the 
Church  Militant "  is,  in  effect,  to  refuse  the  Head  so 
nominated  and  appointed  by  Christ,  and  to  commit  the 

c 


i8  THE    PETKINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    I. 

sin  of  the  Jews  when  they  twice  rejected  the  Lord  because 
of  His  invisibility,  desiring  some  object  of  worship  and 
some  leader  more  cognisable  by  the  senses,  saying  first  to 
Aaron  : — 

"Up,  make  us  gods,  which  shall  go  before  us;  for  as  for  this 
Moses,  the  man  that  brought  us  up  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt,  we  wot 
not  what  is  become  of  him." — Exodus  xxxii.  i  ; 

and  later,  demanding  a  king,  in  order  to  be  like  the  nations 
round  them,  as  recorded  in  i  Sam.  viii.  4-7. 

This  closes  the  evidence  derivable  from  7vo?'ds  of  our 
Lord  in  the  Gospels  as  to  any  peculiar  charter  of  privilege 
bestowed  on  St.  Peter.  But  acts,  in  such  a  matter,  would 
be  equally  vaUd  as  testimony,  and  must  also  be  taken  into 
account.  Our  next  step,  therefore,  is  to  ascertain  what 
direct  personal  distii^ctions  are,  by  the  immediate  acfiofi 
of  Christ  Himself,  conferred  on  St.  Peter,  and  recorded  in 
the  Gospels.     They  are  as  follows  :— 

1.  St.  Peter's  name  stands  Jtist  in  the  three  lists  of  the 
Apostles  given  in  the  synoptic  Gospels,  St.  Matthew  x.  2  ; 
St.  Mark  iii.  16  ;  St.  Luke  vi.  15.  This,  coupled  with  the 
fact  that  the  name  of  Judas  Iscariot  stands  last  in  these 
same  three  lists,  points  to  a  priority  of  some  kind,  albeit 
not  defined  clearly. 

2.  He  is  chosen  as  a  companion  and  witness  to  Christ 
on  three  important  occasions,  from  which  the  general 
body  of  the  Apostles  was  excluded— («)  the  Transfigura- 
tion— St.  Matt.  xvii.  i  ;  St.  Mark  ix.  2  ;  St.  Luke  ix.  28  ; 
{b)  the  raising  of  Jairus's  daughter — St.  Mark  v.  37 ;  St. 
Luke  viii.  5 1  ;  (c)  the  Agony  in  the  Garden — St.  Matt.  xxvi. 
37;  St.  Markxiv.  33. 

3.  He  is  directed  to  pay  the  tribute-money  for  Christ 
and  himself,  and  is  thus  specially  coupled  with  our  Lord — 
St.  Matt.  xvii.  27. 

4.  He  is  sent  to  prepare  the  upper  chamber  for  the 
Passover — St.  Luke  xxii.  8.  These  are  all  the  instances 
discoverable. 

(i.)  As  to  the  first  of  these  distinctions,  St.  Peter's  priority 


CHAP.   I.]  LEGAL    EVIDENCE   OF    SCRIPTURE.  1 9 

in  tht'  lists  of  Apostles,  where  we  might  naturally  look  in  his 
stead  either  for  the  name  of  St.  Andrew,  as  the  first  called 
of  the  Twelve,  and  himself  the  first  to  call  another  to 
Christ  (St.  John  i.  40,  41),  or  else  of  St.  John,  because  of 
his  special  prerogative  as  "  the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved  " 
(St.  John  xiii.  23  ;  xix.  26  ;  xx.  2  ;  xxi.  7,  20),  undoubtedly 
denotes  some  precedence,  and  were  any  jurisdiction  over 
the  other  Apostles  attributed  to  St.  Peter  elsewhere,  it 
would  serve  as  collateral  evidence  in  proof  of  his  claim. 
But  the  entire  silence  of  the  Gospels  on  this  head  forbids  us 
to  read  any  such  clause  into  the  statement,  and  shows  that, 
instead  of  the  order  of  names  in  the  lists  serving  as  a  key  to 
interpret  the  remainder  of  the  notices  concerning  St.  Peter 
in  the  Gospels,  it  must  itself  be  interpreted  by  them,  if  the 
extent  of  St.  Peter's  privilege  be  inferred  from  the  infor- 
mation they  supply.  In  the  analogy  of  any  cognate  lists, 
so  far  as  Holy  Scripture  is  concerned— such  as  those  in 
Genesis,  Numbers,  and  Chronicles  —  only  genealogical 
order  of  seniority  is  denoted,  and  no  difference  of  autho- 
rity over  the  deacons  appears  in  the  case  of  St.  Stephen 
(Acts  vi.  5),  nor  over  the  Seven  Churches  in  that  of  the 
Angel  of  the  Church  ofEphesus  (Rev.  i.  2;  ii.  i);  while  in 
lists  belonging  to  civil  life,  say,  for  example,  such  as  the 
roll  of  English  dukes,  the  order  denotes  merely  social  pre- 
cedence, not  inequality  of  rank  and  honour,  far  less  official 
superiority,  and  the  subordination  of  all  the  lower  names 
on  the  roll  to  the  authority  of  that  which  stands  first. 
There  are,  moreover,  two  items  of  evidence  discoverable 
in  the  lists  of  the  Apostles,  which  materially  weaken  the 
argument  drawn  from  the  order  of  the  names.  They  are 
that,  unquestionably,  St.  James  and  St.  John  occupy  a 
more  prominent  place  in  the  Gospels  than  any  other 
Apostle  except  St.  Peter  himself,  and  seemingly  enjoy  some 
degree  of  priority.  But  in  two  out  of  the  three  lists  (St. 
Matt.  X.  2,  and  St.  Luke  vi.  14),  St.  Andrew  is  placed  next 
after  St.  Peter,  and  described  as  his  brother,  while  in  St. 
Mark's  Gospel  alone  (chap.  iii.  16,  17)  is  the  actual  order 
of  rank   observed,   and  the  qualifying  description  of  St. 

c  2 


20  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    I. 

Andrew  omitted — another  incidental  proof  of  St.  Peter's 
care  not  to  magnify  his  office.  In  like  manner,  St.  Matthew, 
out  of  humility,  places  his  own  name  after  that  of  St. 
Thomas  (St.  Matt.  x.  3),  albeit  he  is  put  before  St.  Thomas 
in  the  Hsts  of  St.  Mark  (iii.  18)  and  St.  Luke  (v.  15).  Con- 
sequently, these  variations  of  the  order  forbid  us  to  assume 
that  any  strict  gradation  of  rank  is  implied,  since  otherwise 
the  Evangelists  would  not  have  ventured  to  deviate  from 
the  series  of  the  original  appointment. 

(ii.)  As  regards  the  three  occasions  on  which  St.  Peter  is 
specially  chosen  to  accompany  Christ,  St.  James  and  St. 
John  share  the  distinction  with  him. 

(iii.)  The  tribute-money  seems  to  couple  him  more  indi- 
vidually with  Christ ;  but  an  inquiry  into  the  circumstances 
of  the  case  deprives  it  of  all  importance  for  the  matter  at 
issue.  For  the  event  happened  at  Capernaum  (St.  Matt, 
xvii.  24),  and  a  comparison  of  St.  Mark  i.  21,  29,  shows  that 
St.  Peter's  house  was  in  that  town  :  "  And  they  went  into 
Capernaum  ;  and  straightway  on  the  Sabbath  day  he  entered 
into  the  synagogue,  and  taught.  .  .  .  And  forthwith,  when 
they  were  come  out  of  the  synagogue,  they  entered  into  the 
house  of  Simon  and  Andrew."  The  tax-collectors  at  Caper- 
naum, going  from  house  to  house  to  demand  the  temple- 
tribute,  come  to  St.  Peter's  dwelling  in  its  turn,  and  call  on 
him,  in  his  character  of  householder,  to  answer  for  his  guest 
as  well  as  for  himself,  in  order  that  if  he  were  a  loyal  Jew, 
and  consequently  morally  liable  to  the  tribute,  it  might  be 
levied  on  Him  also ;  and  knowing  that  Christ  was  then 
abiding  in  the  house,  they  ask  Peter,  "Doth  not  your 
Master  pay  tribute  ?  " — (St.  Matt.  xvii.  24).  Accordingly, 
Christ  accepts  the  position,  and  in  his  capacity  as  St.  Peter's 
guest,  enables  him  to  acquit  himself  cf  his  twofold  respon- 
sibility in  respect  of  the  tax.  Yet  the  relation  is  one  which 
does  not  arise  out  of  His  spontaneous  action  for  the  pur- 
pose of  honouring  St.  Peter,  but  from  the  accidental  coinci- 
dence in  time,  so  to  speak,  of  the  application  to  St.  Peter 
for  payment  and  our  Lord's  visit  to  his  house.  And,  further, 
both  Christ  and  St.  Peter  were,  in  this  instance,  alike  sub- 


CHAP.   I.]  LEGAL    EVIDENCE   OF    SCRIPTURE.  21 

ordinated  to  the  Jewish  law,  which  naturally  treated  them 
as  on  exactly  the  same  footing  below  itself,  and  recognised 
no  distinction  of  liability  between  them  ;  so  that  no  infer- 
ence whatever  can  be  drawn  from  the  narrative  as  to  their 
relation  to  each  other  under  the  Gospel,  and  it  remains  that 
the  sole  reason  for  the  commemoration  of  the  event  is  to 
record  the  miracle  of  the  fish. 

(iv.)  Finally,  St.  John  is  coupled  with  St.  Peter  in  the 
errand  to  prepare  the  Passover,  so  that  here,  too,  no  special 
privilege  is  discernible. 

This  concludes  the  evidence  obtainable  from  the  four 
Gospels,  and  it  is  manifest  so  far  that  no  jurisdiction  ov^r 
the  Church  was  clearly  bestowed  on  or  unquestionably 
exercised  by  St.  Peter.  And  yet  the  analogy  of  the  Old 
Testament  justifies  us  in  looking  for  the  exact  reverse  of 
both  these  propositions,  if  the  hypothesis  of  the  special 
charter  be  sound.  For  in  the  Old  Testament  there  are  no 
fewer  than  three  Divine  and  exceptional  charters  of  privi- 
lege bestowed,  in  all  of  which  the  terms  of  gift  are  precise 
and  unambiguous,  and  in  all  of  which,  moreover,  the  right 
of  transmission  of  the  privilege  by  inheritance  is  expressly 
provided  for  and  assured.  These  are  (a)  the  covenant  with 
Abraham  and  his  seed,  Gen.  xii.  1-3,  renewed  in  Gen. 
xvii.  6-8,  and  xxii.  16-18,  confirmed  to  Isaac,  Gen.  xxvi. 
3,  4,  5,  and  to  Jacob,  Gen.  xxviii.  13,  and  xxxv.  11,  12; 
(i>)  the  grant  of  the  priesthood  to  Aaron  and  his  descend- 
ants, Exod.  xxviii.  i,  confirmed  by  miracle.  Numb.  xvi. 
31-40,  xvii.  5,  8,  and  amplified  in  detail,  Numb,  xviii.  1-8; 
(c)  the  grant  of  the  kingdom  of  Israel  to  David  and  his  pos- 
terity, I  Sam.  vii.  1-16,  renewed  to  Solomon,  i  Kings,  ix. 
2,  6.  It  is  contrary  to  the  analogy  of  faith  that  the  Law 
should  be  clear,  definite,  and  literal  in  a  certain  respect, 
and  that  the  Gospel,  in  a  perfectly  cognate  and  similar  one, 
should  be  obscure,  indeterminate,  and  typical,  veiling  the 
grant  itself  in  mystical  and  enigmatic  phrases,  and  passing 
over  in  entire  silence  the  question  of  transmission.  And, 
regarded  from  a  legal  point  of  view  (which  the  plea  of  a 
Divine  right  conveyed  by  a  formal  grant  makes  necessary  to 


22  THE    PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.   I. 

the  Ultramontane  argument),  there  is  no  conclusion  possible 
from  this  marked  departure  from  these  three  leading  prece- 
dents, or,  so  to  speak,  exemplifications  of  form,  save  that 
no  similar  powers  were  bestowed,  or  intended  to  be  be- 
stowed, and  conveyed  by  the  grant  to  St.  Peter,  seeing  that 
the  grantor  in  all  four  cases  is  the  same  Divine  Person,  so 
that  we  have  a  right  to  look  for  identical  action  and  similar 
wording. 

But  it  may  not  unreasonably  be  argued  in  reply,  that  as 
it  is  St.  Peter's  peculiar  office  and  dignity  to  be  the  Vicar 
of  Christ,  we  cannot  fairly  expect  to  find  him  discharging 
that  function  while  Christ  is  Himself  present  with  His 
Church  on  earth,  just  as  we  do  not  look  for  moonlight  when 
the  sun  is  shining  in  its  strength,  albeit  at  night  the  moon 
far  excels  the  stars  singly  or  collectively.  It  is  after  the 
constitution  of  the  Church  on  the  Day  of  Pentecost,  and 
thenceforward,  that  we  must  look  for  proofs  of  St.  Peters 
authority.  And  it  is  perfectly  true  that  he  does  at  once  assume 
a  prominence  in  the  narrative  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles, 
much  exceeding  anything  recorded  in  the  Gospels.  The 
instances  are  as  follows  : — 

1.  He  proposes,  between  the  Ascension  and  Pentecost, 
the  filling  up  of  the  vacancy  left  by  Judas  Iscariot  in  the 
College  of  Apostles. — Acts  i.  15,  21,  22. 

2.  He  preaches  the  first  missionary  sermon  to  the  Jews 
on  the  Day  of  Pentecost. — Acts  ii.  14,  38. 

3.  He  works  the  first  miracle  of  the  Church,  on  the  lame 
man  at  the  Temple  Gate — (Acts  iii.  6),  and  two  others  of 
the  very  few  recorded  in  the  Acts  (ix.  32-42). 

4.  He  preaches  the  second  missionary  sermon  to  the 
Jews. — Acts  iii.  12. 

5.  He  is  spokesman  for  himself  and  St.  John  before  the 
Sanhedrin. — Acts  iv.  8. 

6.  He  passes  judgment  on  Ananias  and  Sapphira. — 
Acts  V.  3-1 1. 

7.  He  is  a  second  time  spokesman  for  the  Apostles 
before  the  Sanhedrin. — Acts  v.  29. 

8.  He  preaches  the  first  missionary  sermon  to  the  Gen- 


CHAP.  I.]  LEGAL    EVIDENCE   OF   SCRIPTURE.  23 

tiles,  and  causes  his  converts  from  amongst  them  to  be 
baptized. — Acts  x.  34,  48. 

9.  He  argues  in  the  Council  of  Jerusalem  for  the  relaxa- 
tion of  the  ceremonial  law  in  the  case  of  Gentile  Christians. 
— Acts  XV.  7. 

10.  St.  Paul,  at  the  outset  of  his  regular  ministry,  after 
his  three  years'  sojourn  in  Arabia,  goes  up  to  Jerusalem  to 
consult  St.  Peter.— Gal.  i.  18. 

Most  of  these  acts  are  evidence  of  important  and  promi- 
nent station,  and  (2)  and  (8)  of  a  distinction  in  honour 
greater  in  some  respects  than  was  accorded  to  any  other 
Apostle.  But  not  one  of  these  acts  singly,  nor  all  of  them  col- 
lectively, can  furnish  a  tittle  of  proof  in  favour  of  a  primacy 
of  jurisdiction.  And  it  will  be  shown  later  that  even  the  two 
acts  which  do  confer  peculiar  lustre  on  St.  Peter's  name, 
are  interpreted  by  ancient  Christian  writers  in  a  sense 
adverse  to  the  claim  of  supremacy. — See  Chap.  II. 

(i.)  The  narrative  of  the  election  of  St.  Matthias,  so  far 
from  helping  to  establish  any  claim  to  sovereign  authority 
on  St.  Peter's  behalf,  furnishes  one  weighty  item  of  evidence 
against  it.  Nothing  is  clearer  than  that  if  he  had  succeeded 
in  any  special  sense  to  Christ's  authority  over  the  Church, 
as  His  Vicar,  and  if,  in  consequence,  the  Apostolic  College 
bore  any  such  relation  to  him,  as,  for  instance,  the  College 
of  Cardinals  does  to  the  Pope — and  the  Ultramontane 
theory  requires  no  less — St.  Peter  would  have  filled  up  the 
vacant  place  of  Judas  on  his  own  authority,  as  the  Pope 
deals  with  a  vacant  Cardinal's  hat,  or  as  Solomon,  when 
clothed  with  David's  twofold  office  of  king  and  prophet, 
dealt  with  the  high-priesthood,  when  he  put  Zadok  the 
priest  into  the  room  of  Abiathar  (i  Kings  ii.  26,  27,  35). 
But  nothing  of  the  sort  meets  us.  St.  Peter's  share  in  the 
transaction  is  strictly  confined  to  suggesting  the  necessity 
of  designating  a  successor.  The  whole  College  unites  in 
nominating  two  candidates,  and  the  actual  election  is  de- 
cided in  quite  another  way  than  by  the  voice  of  its  presi- 
dent, so  that  there  is  no  likeness  even  to  the  mode  com- 
monly observed  in  episcopal  elections  now  a-days  by  the 


24  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.   I. 

Roman  Catholic  Church  in  countries  where  it  is  discon- 
nected from  the  State,  namely,  that  the  electors  to  a  vacant 
see  submit  three  names  to  the  Pope,  who  may  select  one, 
or,  at  his  pleasure,  set  them  all  aside,  and  appoint  some 
fourth  person,  whom  none  of  the  electors  had  chosen,  as 
was  exemplified  by  the  appointment  of  Dr.  Manning  to  the 
titular  see  of  Westminster  in  1865,  to  the  prejudice  not  merely 
of  the  freedom  of  election,  but  of  the  vested  rights  of  Arch- 
bishop Errington  as  coadjutor  of  Cardinal  Wiseman  cum 
jure  successionis.     The  narrative  in  the  Acts  runs  thus  : — 

"  Wherefore  of  these  men  which  have  companied  with  us  all  the 
time  that  the  Lord  Jesus  went  in  and  out  among  us,  beginning  from 
the  baptism  of  John,  unto  that  same  day  that  He  was  taken  up  from 
us,  must  one  be  ordained  to  be  a  witness  with  us  of  His  resurrection. 
And  they  appointed  two,  Joseph  called  Barsabas,  who  was  surnamed 
Justus,  and  Matthias.  And  they  prayed,  and  said,  Thou,  Lord, 
Which  knowest  the  hearts  of  all  men,  shew  whether  of  these  two  Thou 
hast  chosen,  that  he  may  take  part  of  this  ministry  and  apostleship, 
from  which  Judas  by  transgression  fell,  that  he  might  go  to  his  own 
place.  And  they  gave  forth  their  lots  ;  and  the  lot  fell  upon  Matthias  ; 
and  he  was  numbered  with  the  eleven  apostles." — Acts  i.  21-26. 

(ii.)  Preaching  a  sermon  to  convert  outsiders  to  the 
Church  is  in  no  respect  akin  to  exercising  jurisdiction  over 
those  within  the  Church. 

(iii.)  Nor  is  a  miracle  of  healing,  also  performed  on  one 
outside  the  Church,  an  act  of  internal  jurisdiction. 

(iv.)  This  case  is  identical  with  ii. 

(v.)  A  plea  in  self-defence  before  an  alien  and  external 
tribunal  is  not  an  act  of  internal  jurisdiction. 

(vi.)  The  sentence  on  Ananias  and  Sapphira  is  unques- 
tionably an  example  of  coercive  jurisdiction  for  the  punish- 
ment, by  Divine  authority,  of  offences  against  religion.  But 
{a)  it  is  an  extraordinary  and  miraculous  judgment  in  a  wholly 
exceptional  case,  not  an  act  of  habitual  and  general  juris- 
diction ;  ip)  it  is  inflicted  not  on  an  Apostle,  nor  on  any 
office-bearer  in  the  Church,  but  on  two  lay  persons  belong- 
ing to  the  particular  local  congregation  over  which  St.  Peter 
was  then  presiding,  so  that  it  affords  no  clue  to  the  extent 
of  his  authority  over  other  Apostles,  or  even  over  lay  folk 
void  of  offence;  {c)  the  authority  exercised  is  in  any  case 


CHAP.  I.]  LEGAL   EVIDENCE   OF   SCRIPTURE.  25 

not  visibly  different  in  kind  or  degree  from  that  of  St.  Paul, 
when  he  smote  Elymas  the  sorcerer  with  blindness  (Acts 
xiii.  6-12),  or  when  he  delivered  Hymenaeusand  Alexander 
unto  Satan,  that  they  might  learn  not  to  Blaspheme  (i  Tim. 
i.  20) ;  while  it  is  actually  less  than  that  which  St.  Paul 
exercised  in  the  case  of  the  incestuous  Corinthian,  because 
on  that  occasion  the  Apostle  acted  as  a  judge  of  appeal, 
not  of  first  instance,  and  decided  the  case  from  a  distance, 
and  not  on  the  spot. — i  Cor.  v.  3. 

(vii.)  Is  identical  with  v. 

(viii.)  Is  identical  with  ii.,  with,  however,  a  noteworthy 
hint  of  St.  Peter's  responsibility  to  the  Apostolic  College  : 
"Can  any  man  forbid  water,"  &c.  (Acts.  x.  47),  words 
which  imply  that  had  no  miracle  attested  his  action,  it 
might  be  disallowed  at  Jerusalem,  in  despite  of  his 
Apostolic  office. 

(ix.)  This  establishes  no  more  than  St.  Peter's  right  to  a 
voice  in  the  assembly.  He  does  not  open  the  debate,  for 
he  does  not  begin  to  speak  till  "after  there  had  been 
much  disputing"  (Acts  xv.  7),  nor — what  is  more  signi- 
ficant— does  he  close  it,  as  will  be  shown  presently. 

(x.)  St.  Paul's  consultation  of  St.  Peter  merely  helps  to 
establish  what  is  not  disputed,  the  prominence  and  weight 
which  St.  Peter's  position  gave  him  in  the  Church,  that  is 
to  say,  his  primacy  of  honour.  Whether  it  implied  any 
obligation  on  St.  Paul's  part  to  be  bound  by  St.  Peter's 
decision,  will  be  seen  presently  from  an  examination  of 
another  statement  made  by  St.  Paul  in  the  very  same 
Epistle,  nay,  in  the  very  same  part  of  its  argument. 

So  far,  then,  the  case  of  Ananias  and  Sapphira  is  the  only 
example  of  anything  resembling  the  exercise  of  actual 
jurisdiction  and  authority  by  St.  Peter,  and,  as  has  been 
pointed  out,  it  is  a  purely  local  instance,  proving  no  more 
than  the  right  of  a  pastor  to  rebuke  and  excommunicate 
one  of  his  own  immediate  and  local  flock ;  a  very  slender 
result  of  the  Petrine  charter  of  privilege,  if  it  be  what  is 
alleged. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  are  three  proofs  in  the  .A.cts 


26  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    I. 

that  establish  more  than  mere  failure  of  evidence  as  to  St. 
Peter's  exercise  of  supreme  jurisdiction,  because  they  show 
that  it  was  not  his  to  exercise  at  all.  f'irst  stands  the  narrative 
of  the  mission  to'Samaria  : — 

"Now  when  the  apostles  which  were  at  Jerusalem  heard  that 
Samaria  had  received  the  word  of  God,  they  sent  unto  them  Peter 
and  John  :  who,  when  they  were  come  down,  prayed  for  them,  that 
they  might  receive  the  Holy  Ghost :  (for  as  yet  He  was  fallen  upon 
none  of  them  :  only  they  were  baptized  in  the  name  of  the  Lord 
Jesus).  Then  laid  they  their  hands  on  them,  and  they  received  the 
Holy  Ghost." — Acts  viii.  14-17. 

It  is  a  maxim  admitting  of  no  exception  in  human  affairs 
that  the  sender  is  greater  than  the  sent,  and  therefore  the 
Apostolic  Church  at  Jerusalem  was  in  its  totality  greater 
than  St.  Peter,  whatever  his  rank  in  relation  to  its  separate 
members  may  have  been.  It  would  be  simply  impossible 
to  produce  a  parallel  from  the  modern  Roman  Church  in 
which  such  a  phrase  as  "  The  College  of  Cardinals  at  Rome, 
having  heard  that  a  dispute  as  to  liturgical  questions  had 
arisen  at  Lyons,  sent  the  Pope  and  Cardinal  Tale  to  settle 
it,"  would  be  so  much  as  conceivable. 

Secondly,  when  St.  Peter  had  baptized  Cornelius  and 
some  other  Gentiles,  the  remaining  Apostles  and  brethren, 
instead  of  submissively  accepting  his  decision,  called  him 
to  account  for  the  innovation ;  and  he,  in  turn,  instead 
of  simply  citing  bis  privilege  and  bidding  them  obey, 
admitted  his  responsibility  to  them,  by  defending  himself 
at  length,  recounting  the  circumstances  of  his  vision: — 

"And  the  apostles  and  brethren  that  were  in  Judaea  heard  that  the 
Gentiles  had  also  received  the  word  of  God.  And  when  Peter  was 
come  up  to  Jerusalem,  they  that  were  of  the  circumcision  contended 
with  him,  saying,  Thou  wentest  in  to  menuncircumcised,  and  didst  eat 
with  them.  But  Peter  rehearsed  the  matter  from  the  beginning,  and 
expounded  it  by  order  unto  them,"  &c. — Acts  xi.  1-5. • 

The  third  item  of  disproof  is  even  weightier.     It  is  that 

'  Gerson  cites  this  passage  as  proving  St.  Peter's  accountability  to 
the  Church,  and  the  compulsion  he  was  under  of  giving  satisfactory 
reasons  for  his  action  :  "  Ut  scilicet  paratus  esset  coram  tota  rationem 
reddere.  .  .  .  alioquin  non  sibi  credidisset  ecclesia." — De  Auferi- 
bilitate  Papa  ah  Ecclesia.     Consid.  12. 


CHAP.    I.]  LEGAL    EVIDENCE   OF    SCRIPTURP:.  27 

the  presidency  and  deciding  voice  in  the  Council  of  Jeru- 
salem belong  to  St.  James,  and  not  to  St.  Peter,  who  is  no 
more  than  an  influential  debater,  on  a  level  with  St.  Paul 
and  St.  Barnabas.  St.  James  terminates  the  discussion 
with  an  authoritative  ruling,  Acts  xv.  19,  *•' Wherefore  my 
sentence  is,"  or  as  it  would  be  more  tersely  and  literally 
rendered,  "  Wherefore  I  decide "  (Gr.  iyw  kyj/rtu) ;  Vulg. 
egojudico),  whereas  the  words  he  uses  of  St.  Peter's  argu- 
ment are  merely  "Simeon  hath  declared,"  &c.,  where  the 
exact  rendering  is  no  more  than  '"stated"  or  "related" 
(Gr.  iiny))(TaTo  ;  Vulg.  naiTavit).  And  the  decree  of  the 
Council  is  strictly  corporate  in  its  terms,  implying  absolute 
equality  in  the  authority  of  its  framers: — 

"  Then  pleased  it  the  apostles  and  elders,  with  the  whole  church 
....  The  apostles  and  elders  and  brethren  send  greeting  .... 
It  seemed  good  unto  us,  being  assembled  with  one  accord,  to  send 
....  For  it  seemed  good  to  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  to  us  .  .  .  . 
Fare  ye  well." — Acts  xv.  22. 

It  will  not  avail  here  to  argue  that  the  presidency  was 
conceded  to  St.  James  out  of  courtesy  to  his  local  rights  as 
Bishop  of  the  diocese  of  Jerusalem,  even  though  his 
superior  was  present,  much  as  in  Church  Congresses  the 
diocesan  is  chairman,  no  matter  what  prelates  of  higher 
rank  may  attend ;  simply  because  this  was  not  in  any 
sense  a  local  assembly  for  diocesan  purposes,  nor  a  merely 
consultative  gathering,  not  intended  to  come  to  any  deci- 
sion, but  a  Council  met  to  consider  a  question  of  first-rate 
importance  to  Christianity,  and  to  formulate  a  binding 
decree  respecting  it  for  the  whole  Catholic  Church  of  the 
time;  while  St.  Peter's  presence  and  active  share  in  the 
proceedings  excludes  any  rebutting  plea  based  on  his  rela- 
tion to  the  Council ;  nor  is  any  hint  discoverable  that  St. 
James  did  but  give  voice  to  St.  Peter's  decision.  This 
piece  of  evidence  becomes  all  the  more  weighty,  if  we 
follow  the  received  and  highly  probable  tradition  of  the 
ancient  Church,  that  St.  James  was  not  one  of  the  original 
Twelve  Apostles,  but  the  "Lord's  brother." — Gal.  i.  19. 

The  next  step  in  the  inquiry  is  to  ascertain  what  claims 
St.  Peter  himself,  by  his  acts  or  writings,  makes  to  supreme 


28  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [cHAP.    I. 

personal  authority,  as  ruler  or  teacher  of  the  Church,  as  it 
is  certain  that  he  could  not  justifiably  conceal  nor  even 
minimise  a  Divine  charter  of  the  sort,  forming  an  integral 
part  of  the  constitution  of  Christ's  Kingdom.  Any  acts 
or  words  of  the  kind  would  serve  as  an  inspired  comment 
on  the  terms  of  his  commission,  and  should  rightly  be 
read  into  it  as  its  measure  and  explanation. 

These  are  exactly  three  passages  of  Holy  Scripture 
which  are  relevant  to  this  part  of  the  discussion.  They 
are  these : — 

1.  "And  as  Peter  was  coming  in,  Cornelius  met  him,  and  fell 
down  at  his  feet,  and  worshipped  him.  But  Peter  took  him  up, 
saying,  Stand  up  ;  I  myself  also  am  a  man." — Acts  x.  25,  26. 

2.  "The  elders  which  are  among  you  I  exhort,  who  am  also  an 
elder,  and  a  witness  of  the  sufferings  of  Christ,  and  also  a  partaker  of 
the  glory  that  shall  be  revealed." — I  St.  Peter  v.  i. 

3.  "Wherefore  I  will  not  be  negligent  to  put  you  always  in  re- 
membrance of  these  things,  though  ye  know  them,  and  be  established 
in  the  present  truth.  Yea,  I  think  it  meet,  as  long  as  I  am  in  this 
tabernacle,  to  stir  you  up  by  putting  you  in  remembrance  ;  knowing 
that  shortly  I  must  put  off  this  my  tabernacle,  even  as  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  hath  showed  me.  Moreover,  I  will  endeavour  that  ye  may  be 
able  after  my  decease  to  have  these  things  always  in  remembrance." — 
2  St.  Peter  i.  12-15. 

It  is  to  be  observed  that  the  phrase  "  who  am  also  an 
elder,"  in  the  second  of  these  citations,  is  simpler  and 
humbler  in  the  original  and  in  the  Vulgate,  which  have 
severally  (TviuTrperrf^vTepoQ  and  con  senior  =^"'2i  fellow-elder"; 
so  that  here  St.  Peter  does  not  press  even  his  apostleship. 

Obviously,  these  three  citations,  so  far  from  strengthening 
the  case  for  the  supremacy,  rather  weaken  it.  To  say  the 
least,  nothing  can  be  extracted  from  them  which  denotes 
consciousness  on  St.  Peter's  part  of  his  especial  and 
singular  privilege,  while  the  language  of  the  third  quotation 
is  that  of  a  man  who  is  seizing  a  final  opportunity  of  warn- 
ing his  flock  personally  for  the  last  time,  in  hopes  that  his 
latest  words  may  have  permanent  influence ;  not  that  of  a 
dying  monarch  and  lawgiver,  who  had  provided  for  all  con- 
tingencies  to   the   latest   hour   of    time,    by   bequeathing 


CHAP.  I.]  LEGAL   EVIDENCE   OF    SCRIPTURE.  29 

infallible  judgment  and  absolute  power  to  a  line  of  suc- 
cessors, heirs  to  his  transmissible  and  inalienable  privilege. 

Moreover,  if,  as  we  are  further  assured,  the  plenitude  of 
teaching  as  well  as  of  ruling  is  vested  in  St.  Peter  and  his 
successors,  we  are  entitled  to  look  for  evidence  of  this  fact 
also  in  Holy  Scripture.  St.  Peter's  own  writings  will  in 
that  case  be  our  chief  storehouse  of  doctrinal  and  disciplinary 
instruction  ;  or  else  the  authority  of  St.  Peter  will  be  found 
specifically  given  to  the  other  Scriptural  documents  as  their 
warrant.  Here,  again,  if  no  writings  of  St.  Peter  had  come 
down  to  us,  we  might  perhaps  assume  that  St.  Mark's 
Gospel  (itself  the  briefest  and,  in  some  sense,  least 
important  of  the  four)  embodied  for  us  the  whole  of 
Petrine  teaching,  but  the  existence  of  the  two  Epistles  of 
St.  Peter  bars  that  plea.  What  do  these  Epistles  yield  us 
on  examination  ? 

They  prove  to  be  exclusively  moral  and  hortatory, 
except  in  three  passages,  which  only  are,  so  to  speak,  classical 
texts  supplying  information  on  doctrinal  matters  not  else- 
where set  down  in  equivalent  terms.     They  are  these  : — 

1.  "  For  Christ  also  hath  once  suffered  for  sins,  the  just  for  the  un- 
just, that  He  might  bring  us  to  God,  being  put  to  death  in  the  flesh, 
but  quickened  by  the  Spirit.  By  which  also  He  went  and  preached 
unto  the  spirits  in  prison  ;  which  sometime  were  disobedient,  when 
once  the  long-suffering  of  God  waited  in  the  days  of  Noah,  while 
the  ark  was  a-preparing  ;  wherein  few,  that  is,  eight  souls,  were  saved 
by  water.  The  like  figure  whereunto,  even  baptism,  doth  also  now 
save  us  (not  the  putting  away  of  the  filth  of  the  flesh,  but  the  answer 
of  a  good  conscience  toward  God),  by  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ : 
^Vho  is  gone  into  heaven,  and  is  on  the  right  hand  of  God,  angels 
and  authorities  and  powers  being  made  subject  unto  Him." — i  St. 
Peter  iii.  18-22. 

2.  '*  For  this  cause  was  the  Gospel  preached  also  to  them  that  are 
dead,  that  they  might  be  judged  according  to  men  in  the  flesh,  but 
live  according  to  God  in  the  spirit." — 1  St.  Peter  iv.  6. 

3.  "And  account  that  the  long-suffering  of  our  Lord  is  salvation  ; 
even  as  our  beloved  brother  Paul  also  according  to  the  wisdom  given 
unto  him  hath  written  unto  you  ;  as  also  in  all  his  epistles,  speaking 
in  them  of  these  things  ;  in  which  are  some  things  hard  to  be  under- 
stood, which  they  that  are  unlearned  and  unstable  wrest,  as  they  do 
also  the  other  scriptures,  unto  their  own  destruction." — 2  St.  Peter 
iii.  15,  16. 


30  THE    PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    I. 

And  there  is  a  fourth  passage,  noticeable  as  the  only  one 
worded  in  an  authoritative  fashion,  but  remarkable  for  its 
collective  and,  as  it  were,  impersonal  wording  "us  the 
apostles,"  contrasted  with  the  first  person  singular  of  St. 
Paul  and  St.  John  : — 

"This  second  epistle,  beloved,  I  now  write  unto  you;  in  both 
which  I  stir  up  your  pure  minds  by  way  of  remembrance  :  that  ye 
may  be  mindful  of  the  words  which  were  spoken  before  by  the  holy 
prophets,  and  of  the  commandment  of  us  the  apostles  of  the  Lord  and 
Saviour." — 2  St.  Peter  iii.  i.  2. 

This,  then,  is  the  sum  of  the  direct  instruction  in  matter 
of  doctrine,  as  distinguished  from  devotional  and  moral 
exhortation,  peculiar  to  these  Epistles,  which  St.  Peter  has 
given  to  the  Church — ^two  sentences  giving  some  informa- 
tion as  to  the  souls  of  those  who  died  before  the  coming  of 
Christ,  one  declaration  of  the  nature  and  effect  of  Baptism, 
and  one  warning  against  misinterpreting  St.  Paul's  writings. 
There  is  no  disciplinary  instruction  whatever.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  we  turn  to  the  Epistles  of  St.  James  and  St.  John, 
even  without  taking  account  of  the  latter  Apostle's  Gospel 
and  Apocalypse,  we  shall  find  a  larger  element  of  both 
discipline  and  doctrine  than  in  St.  Peter's  writings.  Thus, 
for  example,  in  the  second  chapter  of  St.  James's  Epistle, 
a  rule  is  laid  down  about  the  equality  of  rich  and  poor  in 
Christian  assemblies : — 

"My  brethren,  have  not  the  faith  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the 
Lord  of  glory,  with  respect  of  persons.  For  if  there  come  unto  your 
assembly  a  man  with  a  gold  ring,  in  goodly  apparel,  and  there  come 
in  also  a  poor  man  in  vile  raiment  :  and  ye  have  respect  to  him  that 
weareth  the  gay  clothing,  and  say  unto  him,  Sit  thou  here  in  a  good 
place  ;  and  say  to  the  poor,  Stand  thou  there,  or  sit  here  under  my 
footstool :  are  ye  not  then  partial  in  yourselves,  and  are  become 
judges  of  evil  thoughts?" — St.  James  ii.  i  4, 

In  another  place  a  rule  is  laid  down  about  the  anointing 
the  sick  and  the  duty  of  confession  : — 

"Is  any  among  you  afflicted?  let  him  pray.  Is  any  merry  ?  let 
him  sing  psalms.  Is  any  sick  among  you  ?  let  him  call  for  the  elders 
of  the  church  ;  and  let  them  pray  over  him,  anointing  him  with  oil 


CHAP.  I.]  LEGAL   EVIDENCE   OF    SCRIPTURE.  3 1 

in  the  name  of  the  Lord :  and  the  prayer  of  faith  shall  save  the  sick, 
and  the  Lord  shall  raise  him  up  ;  and  if  he  have  committed  sins,  they 
shall  be  forgiven  him.  Confess  your  faults  one  to  another,  and  pray 
one  for  another,  that  ye  may  be  healed.  The  effectual  fervent  prayer 
of  a  righteous  man  availeth  much." — St.  James  v.  13-16. 

And,  perhaps  more  significantly  than  these  passages,  the 
error  of  those  who  perverted  St.  Paul's  teaching  is  combated 
directly,  and  not  by  way  of  broad  general  statement,  whereby 
we  learn  that  their  error  was  Antinomianism,  and  it  is  not 
too  much  to  say  that,  as  an  element  of  Christian  teaching, 
St  James's  doctrine  of  the  necessity  of  works  as  a  proof 
and  fruit  of  faith,  laid  down  in  Chapter  ii.  14-26,  in  correc- 
tion of  the  misuse  which  had  been  made  in  the  Early 
Church,  as  it  has  been  in  modern  times  also,  of  St.  Paul's 
language  in  the  Epistles  to  the  Romans  and  Galatians,  is 
of  incomparably  greater  practical  importance,  and  has  occu- 
pied a  much  larger  space  in  Catholic  theology,  than  the 
above-cited  words  of  St.  Peter. 

So,  too,  if  we  examine  the  Epistles  of  St.  John,  we  shall 
find  more  explicit  dogmatic  teaching  and  clearer  references 
to  ecclesiastical  discipline  than  in  St.  Peter's  writings. 
There  is,  chiefly  in  the  First  Epistle,  the  doctrine  of  the 
Incarnation  and  of  the  Homoousion  clearly  laid  down 
(i  St.  John  i.  I,  2;  ii.  22,  23;  iv.  3,  15;  v.  6,  10,  12); 
while  in  the  Second  and  Third  we  have  these  intimations 
of  discipline : — 

'•  Whosoever  transgresseth,  and  abideth  not  in  the  doctrine  ot 
Christ,  hath  not  God.  He  that  abideth  in  the  doctrine  of  Christ,  he 
hath  both  the  Father  and  the  Son.  If  there  come  any  unto  you,  and 
bring  not  this  doctrine,  receive  him  not  into  your  house,  neither  bid 
him  God  speed  :  for  he  that  biddeth  him  God  speed  is  partaker  of 
his  evil  deeds."~2  St.  John,  9-11  ; 

and 

"  I  wrote  unto  the  church  :  but  Diotrephes,  who  loveth  to  have 
the  pre-eminence  among  them,  receiveth  us  not.  Wherefore,  if  I 
come,  I  will  remember  his  deeds  which  he  doeth,  prating  against  us 
with  malicious  words  ;  and  not  content  therewith,  neither  doth  he 
himself  receive  the  brethren,  and  forbiddeth  them  that  would,  and 
casteth  them  out  of  the  church."— 3  St.  Tohn,  9,  10. 


32  THE    PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    1. 

That  is  to  say,  in  effect,  if  the  two  Epistles  of  St.  Peter 
had  been  lost,  as  the  Epistle  to  the  Church  of  Laodicea 
has  been  lost  (Coloss.  iv.  i6),  albeit  much  food  for  devout 
meditation  would  be  gone,  no  practical  difference  in  the 
sum  and  colour  of  Christian  teaching  would  be  discernible, 
except  as  to  the  one  speculation  concerning  the  spirits  of 
the  pre-Christian  patriarchs — a  conclusion  wholly  incon- 
sistent with  the  position  of  Universal  Teacher  claimed  for 
St.  Peter  by  Roman  controversialists,  and  yet  indisputable 
as  matter  of  fact.  For  Christianity,  as  we  know  it,  is 
Pauline  and  Johannine  all  but  exclusively,  and  if  there  be 
a  Petrine  element,  it  is  so  obscure  as  to  be  matter  of 
conjecture,  not  of  knowledge. ^ 

There  remains  still  a  great  mass  of  yet  uncited  Scripture 
testimony,  which  is  perhaps  weighter  than  all  that  has  thus 
far  been  adduced,  namely,  that  which  consists  of  the  life 
and  writings  of  St.  Paul. 

That  superior  prominence  in  the  narrative  of  the  Apos- 
tolic Church,  already  named  as  evident  of  St.  Peter  from 
the  moment  of  the  Ascension,  is  not  prolonged  throughout. 
His  leadership  and  chief  share  in  guiding  the  fortunes  and 
in  moulding  the  shape  of  the  infant  community,  end,  so  far 
as  Scripture  records  for  us,  with  his  admission  of  the 
Gentiles  into  Church  fellowship.  From  the  time  of  St. 
Paul's  return  to  Jerusalem,  after  the  three  years  of  retire- 
ment in  Arabia,  which  followed  his  conversion  (Gal.  i.  17), 
he  completely  overshadows  St.  Peter  in  the  narrative  of  the 
Acts  of  the  Apostles,  to  such  an  extent,  indeed,  that  no 

'  Indeed,  if  to  be  found  now  at  all,  it  is  in  the  literature  of  the  Syrian 
Churches,  influenced  by  the  once  famous  schools  of  Edessa  and  Nisibis, 
whose  Petrine  tone  is  probable  evidence  that  the  "  Babylon  "  of  St. 
Peter's  First  Epistle  is  the  ancient  city  of  Mesopotamia,  in  their 
neighbourhood,  and  not  Rome  ;  in  which  case  the  one  possible  link 
of  Scriptural  evidence  to  connect  him  with  that  See  fails.  And 
whether  or  not,  as  these  Syrian  Churches  severed  themselves  from 
Catholic  unity  in  hostility  to  the  Councils  of  Ephesus  and  Chalcedon, 
and  have  remained  sepai-ated  ever  since,  they  are  proof  that  adherence 
to  Petrine  teaching  does  not  necessarily  connote  ortliodoxy  or  Catho- 
licity in  all  respects. 


CHAP.  I.]  LEGAL   EVIDENCE    OF    SCRIPTURE.  33 

mention  whatever  of  the  elder  Apostle  occurs  after  the 
account  of  his  deliverance  from  prison  (Acts  xii.  3-17), 
except  his  speech  at  the  Council  of  Jerusalem  in  Acts 
XV.  7-11,  already  referred  to;  whereas  the  whole  latter 
portion  of  the  Acts,  including  Chapters  xiii.-xxviii.,  with  the 
exception  of  part  of  Chapter  xv.,  is  entirely  devoted  to 
recording  the  actions  and  missionary  travels  of  St.  Paul — 
an  amount  of  direct  biographical  record  not  paralleled  by 
any  human  lives  in  Holy  Writ  save  those  of  Moses  and 
David.  And  if  it  be  urged  that  this  circumstance  is  due 
to  the  "  accident,"  so  to  speak,  of  St.  Luke,  the  compiler 
of  the  Acts,  having  been  the  chosen  companion  of  St. 
Paul  (Coloss.  iv.  14;  2  Tim.  iv.  11),  the  reply  is  obvious, 
that  St.  Peter,  too,  had  an  Evangelist  in  his  train,  "Marcus, 
my  son"  (St.  Peter  v.  13),  so  that  they  were  on  an  equal 
footing  in  that  respect ;  and,  had  the  events  of  St.  Peter's 
life  been  as  important  for  us  to  know  as  those  of  St.  Paul, 
it  would  doubtless  have  pleased  the  Holy  Ghost  to  have 
inspired  St.  Mark  to  write  them  for  our  edification.  Yet, 
on  the  Ultramontane  hypothesis,  every  act  and  word  of  St. 
Peter  must  needs  be  of  vital  interest,  and  especially  every- 
thing which  took  the  shape  of  a  dogmatic  instruction  or  a 
disciplinary  regulation,  as  moulding  the  Church  for  all 
time. 

The  second  fact  which  meets  us  under  this  head  is  the 
great  bulk  of  St.  Paul's  writings,  here  again  only  paral- 
leled by  Moses,  even  if  we  exclude  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews  as  not  St.  Paul's,  albeit  Pauline  in  its  doctrine. 
Apart  from  the  Pentateuch,  Isaiah,  with  its  66  chapters  of 
1,302  verses,  is  the  largest  product  of  a  single  author  in 
the  Old  Testament;  for  the  Psalter,  with  its  150  Psalms 
of  2,500  verses,  is  the  work  of  several  hands  besides  that 
of  David;  while  St.  Paul's  Epistles  occupy  87  chapters, 
with  2,023  verses,  and  if  the  Hebrews  be  added  in,  100 
chapters,  with  2,325  verses,  as  compared  with  the  eight 
chapters  of  166  verses  in  St.  Peter's  two  Epistles.  Further, 
St.  Luke's,  or  the  Pauline,  Gospel,  exceeds  St.  Mark's,  or' 
the  Petrine,  in  the  ratio  of  24  chapters,  with  1,151  verses, 

D 


34  1HE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    I. 

to  16  chapters,  with  678  verses;  and  there  are  the  28 
chapters  of  1,007  verses  in  the  Acts,  also  PauHne  in  source, 
to  be  added  in  besides,  making  a  grand  total  of  152 
chapters,  with  4,483  verses,  as  against  24  chapters,  with  844 
verses. 

In  the  third  place,  not  only  are  the  directly  Pauline 
writings  fourteen  times  in  excess  of  the  Petrine  in  mere 
bulk,  but  they  are  of  enormously  greater  literary  and  theo- 
logical importance,  being  not  merely  replete  with  doctrinal 
statements  and  disciplinary  enactments,  such  as  are 
noticeably  absent  from  St.  Peter's  Epistles,  but  having  in 
truth  been  incomparably  the  most  powerful  factor  in  mould- 
ing the  life  and  tenets  of  the  Christian  Church,  which  has 
drawn,  for  example,  by  far  the  greater  part  of  its  teaching  on 
grace,  election,  and  free-will,  on  the  moral  and  dogmatic 
results  of  Christ's  Resurrection,  on  the  nature  of  Baptism, 
on  the  unity  of  the  Church,  on  the  operations  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  on  the  place  of  tradition  as  an  element  of  doctrine, 
on  the  relation  of  the  Law  to  the  Gospel,  and  also  on  the 
fundamental  principles  of  ecclesiastical  discipline,  from  the 
Epistles  of  St.  Paul,  for  his  Pastoral  Epistles  are  our  chief 
repertory  of  knowledge  as  to  the  rules  of  Church  govern- 
ment which  prevailed  in  the  earliest  times.  So  thoroughly 
did  the  Fathers  realise  this  pre-eminence  of  St.  Paul  as 
the  Teacher  of  the  Church,  that  wherever  we  find  "  the 
Apostle"  referred  to  by  them,  with  no  specification  of 
person,  they  always  mean  St.  Paul.  So  Eusebius,  Hist. 
EccL^  vi.  36;  so  Theodoret,  Hteret.  Fab.,  ii.  7 ;  so  St.  Augus- 
tine, Co?it.  Epist.  Felag.,  saying,  "  So,  when  *  Apostle ' 
is  said,  if  it  be  not  expressed  what  Apostle,  none  is  under- 
stood save  Paul;"  so  St.  Chrysostom,  Horn.  iv.  in  Act. 
Apost.,  observing,  "When you  say  Apostle^dX  once  all  think 
of  him  [Paul],  just  as  when  you  say  Baptist  they  think  of 
John."  And  this  custom  prevails  in  the  Oriental  Churches 
to  the  present  day,  where  "  the  Apostle  "  means  the  Book 
of  St.  Paul's  Epistles.  Similarly,  St.  Luke's  Gospel  is  far 
more  important  than  St.  Mark's,  which,  save  for  a  few  pas- 
sages, might  be  described  as  a  short  recension  of  St.  Mat- 


CHAP.  I.]  LEGAL    EVIDENCE    OF    SCRIPTURE.  35 

thew,  and  could,  so  to  speak,  be  more  easily  dispensed 
with  than  any  of  the  others. 

It  is  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to  reconcile  this  broad 
fact  with  the  position  now  claimed  for  the  Popes  as  chief 
teachers  of  the  Church  in  virtue  of  their  heirship  to  St. 
Peter,  for  it  is  simply  indisputable  that  St.  Peter  either  did 
not  fill  this  office  at  all  in  the  primitive  Church,  or  that  by 
divine  intervention  he  was  set  aside  in  it,  and  the  records 
of  his  occupancy  destroyed,  leaving  the  apparent  dignity, 
as  well  as  the  actual  influence,  in  the  hands  of  St.  Paul,  so 
far,  at  any  rate,  as  the  BibHcal  notices  guide  us  ;  thus 
carrying  out  under  the  New  Testament  that  rule  of  the  first 
being  last  and  the  elder  serving  the  younger,  laid  down  by 
Christ,  and  evidenced  in  the  Old  Testament  in  the  cases 
of  Cain  and  Seth,  Ishmael  and  Isaac,  Esau  and  Jacob, 
Reuben  and  Joseph  or  Judah,  Aaron  and  Moses,  Eliab  and 
David,  Adonijah  and  Solomon. 

It  has  been  alleged,  indeed  (by  Cardinal  Manning,  in  a 
sermon  preached  on  July  3,  1887),  that  whatever  share  the 
other  Apostles  had  in  authority  over  the  Church  was 
"  always  in  union  with,  and  in  dependence  upon,  Peter,  who 
was  their  head."  But  this  assertion  (which  first  appears 
in  the  writings  of  Pope  Leo  I.,  Serm.  iv.  2  ;  Epp.  x.  i) 
is  not  merely  without  sustaining  evidence  in  all  cases,  but 
is  directly  refuted  by  the  explicit  language  of  St.  Paul,  wha 
declares  that  he  received  his  Apostleship  and  his  doctrine 
directly  from  Christ  Himself,  as  will  be  cited  presently,. 
when  we  examine  St.  Paul's  evidence  touching  his  own 
powers  {n  and  0). 

Such  is  the  general  result  of  this  remarkable  contrast  in 
the  parts  severally  played  by  the  two  Apostles  in  the  New 
Testament,  but  there  is  in  addition  some  important  evi- 
dence obtainable  from  St.  Paul's  writings ;  first,  as  to  the 
true  measure  and  limits  of  St.  Peter's  official  authority; 
and  secondly,  as  regards  the  extent  of  St^  Paul's  own 
powers. 

The  first  class  of  these  testimonies  is  comprised  in  the 
following  paragraphs : — 

D  2 


36  THE    PETRI NE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    I. 

i.  "Now  I  beseech  you,  brethren,  by  the  name  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  that  ye  all  speak  the  same  thing,  and  that  there  be  no  divisions 
among  you  :  but  that  ye  be  perfectly  joined  together  in  the  same 
mind  and  in  the  same  judgment.  For  it  hath  been  declared  unto  me 
of  you,  my  brethren,  by  them  which  are  of  the  house  of  Chloe,  that 
there  are  contentions  among  you.  Now  this  I  say,  that  every  one  of 
you  saith,  I  am  of  Paul ;  and  I  of  Apollos  ;  and  I  of  Cephas  ;  and  I 
of  Christ.  Is  Christ  divided  ?  was  Paul  crucified  for  you?  or  were  ye 
baptized  in  the  name  of  Paul  ?  " — I  Cor.  i.  10-13. 

ii.  "  Therefore  let  no  man  glory  in  men.  For  all  things  are  yours  ; 
whether  Paul,  or  Apollos,  or  Cephas,  or  the  world,  or  life,  or  death, 
or  things  present,  or  things  to  come ;  all  are  yours  ;  and  ye  are 
Christ's;  and  Christ  is  God's." — i  Cor.  iii.  21-23. 

iii.  "When  they  saw  that  the  gospel  of  the  uncircumcision  was 
committed  unto  me,  as  the  gospel  of  the  circumcision  was  unto 
Peter ;  (for  He  that  wrought  effectually  in  Peter  to  the  apostleship 
of  the  circumcision,  the  same  was  mighty  in  me  toward  the  Gentiles  :) 
and  when  James,  Cephas,  and  John,  who  seemed  to  be  pillars, 
perceived  the  grace  that  was  given  unto  me,  they  gave  to  me  and 
Barnabas  the  right  hands  of  fellowship  ;  that  we  should  go  unto  the 
heathen,  and  they  unto  the  circumcision.  Only  they  would  that  we 
should  remember  the  poor ;  the  same  which  I  ako  was  forward  to 
do.  But  when  Peter  was  come  to  Antioch,  I  withstood  him  to  the 
face,  because  he  was  to  be  blamed.  For  before  that  certain  came 
from  James,  he  did  eat  with  the  Gentiles  :  but  when  they  were  come, 
he  withdrew  and  separated  himself,  fearing  them  which  were  of  the 
circumcision.  And  the  other  Jews  dissembled  likewise  with  him  ; 
insomuch  that  Barnabas  also  was  carried  away  with  their  dissimulation. 
But  when  I  saw  that  they  walked  not  uprightly  according  to  the 
truth  of  the  gospel,  I  said  unto  Peter  before  them  all,  If  thou,  being 
3.  Jew,  livest  after  the  manner  of  Gentiles,  and  not  as  do  the 
Jews,  why  compellest  thou  the  Gentiles  to  live  as  do  the  Jews  ?  " — 
"Gal.  ii.  7-14. 

iv.  "And  God  hath  set  some  in  the  church,  first  apostles, 
secondarily  prophets,  thirdly  teachers,  after  that  miracles,  then  gifts 
of  healings,  helps,  governments,  diversities  of  tongues." — i  Cor. 
xii.  28. 

V.  "  And  He  gave  some,  apostles  ;  and  some,  prophets  ;  and  some, 
■evangelists  ;  and  some,  pastors  and  teachers  ;  for  the  perfecting  of 
the  saints,  for  the  work  of  the  ministr}',  for  the  edifying  of  the  body 
of  Christ." — Eph.  iv.  11,  12. 

From  these,  five  passages  we  collect  the  subjoined  facts, 
as  divinely  revealed. 

a.  It  was  a  mark  of  schism  to  adhere  specifically  to 
St.  Peter,  so  as  to  form  a  separate  school  or  party  in  the 
Church ;  instead  of  this  very  choice  being  treated,  as  it  is 


CHAP.  I.]  LEGAL    EVIDENCE    OF    SCRIPTURE.  37 

by  Ultramontanes  now,  as  the  one  peculiar  note  and  test 
of  Catholic  fellowship  and  of  covenant  with  God. 

b.  The  Christian  body  is  not  St.  Peter's  domain,  but  he 
himself,  contrariwise,  as  part  of  that  body,  belongs  to  the 
whole,  and  is  included  in  its  possessions,  as  it  in  turn  is 
included  in  Christ's. 

c.  Instead  of  the  Church  Universal  being,  so  to  speak, 
St.  Peter's  diocese,  he  was  divinely  restricted  to  the  Cir- 
cumcision, that  is  to  say,  the  Church  of  Jewish  converts, 
and  had  no  jurisdiction  whatever  over  the  Gentiles,  and, 
consequently,  as  no  subsequent  enlargement  of  this  restric- 
tion is  recorded  either  by  Scripture  or  by  other  sources 
of  revelation,  he  could  not  transmit  to  arty  of  his  succes- 
sors a  wider  authority  than  that  here  named  as  his  limit. 
The  restriction  is  nowhere  explained  to  us,  and  looks  at 
first  sight  somewhat  inconsistent  with  St.  Peter's  priority  in 
making  Gentile  converts ;  but  it  is  probably  analogous  to 
the  subdivision  of  a  too  extensive  diocese  in  our  own  day, 
whereby  the  original  bishop  gradually  finds  one  district 
after  another  withdrawn  from  his  jurisdiction,  not  in  the 
least  by  way  of  slight  or  penalty,  but  as  a  matter  of  neces- 
sity. Whatever  be  the  cause,  nevertheless  such  withdrawal 
deprives  him  of  episcopal  rights  over  the  severed  districts, 
unless  saved  to  him  in  the  capacity  of  Metropolitan  by 
express  provision ;  nor  can  he  transmit  his  original  rights 
over  the  whole  unbroken  diocese  to  his  successors.  There 
are  three  modern  and  familiar  instances,  Australia,  Cape 
Town,  and  Rupertsland,  in  the  history  of  the  Anglican 
Church  in  the  colonies.  The  inference,  so  far,  is  that 
St.  Peter  had  no  Gentile  jurisdiction  to  transmit,  for  the 
separate  "  Church  of  the  Circumcision  "  did  not  merge  in 
the  general  Christian  body  till  the  reign  of  Hadrian,  fifty 
years  after  St.  Peter's  death. 

d.  The  order  of  the  three  Apostolic  names,  "James, 
Cephas,  John,"  cited  by  St.  Paul,  seems  to  imply  either 
equality  of  rank  amongst  them,  or  else  that  St.  James,  as  head 
of  the  principal  Church  of  the  Circumcision  at  Jerusalem,  was 
now  in  some  sense  St.  Peter's  ecclesiastical  superior.  And 
h\s  v'\ew  is  supported  by  the  words  cited  above  (iv.),  which 


38  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  I. 

tell  us  (Gal  ii.  1 2)  that  St.  Peter's  line  of  policy  at  Antioch 
was  through  fear  of  St.  James's  legates,  a  fear  not  easily 
explicable  on  any  ground  save  that  of  some  accountability 
on  his  part  to  them.  There  is  one  further  item  of  evidence, 
too  slight  for  independent  importance,  but  cumulative, 
which  makes  in  the  same  direction,  namely,  that  when  St. 
Peter  was  released  from  prison  he  directed  the  people  at 
St.  Mark's  house  to  "Go,  shew  these  things  unto  James 
and  to  the  brethren"  (Acts  xii.) — words  which  may  imply 
that  he  was  in  some  way  bound  to  report  himself  to  what, 
in  modern  language,  would  be  called  the  Bishop  and 
Chapter  of  the  see. 

e.  Next,  there  is  at  once  the  full  disproof  of  St.  Peter's 
infallibility  and  of  his  supremacy.  He  decides  wrongly  on 
an  important  question  of  faith  and  morals — for  even  if  we 
accept  the  view  of  St.  Jerome  and  others,  that  the  debate 
was  pre-arranged  between  St.  Paul  and  himself,  he  was 
assigned  the  worse  cause — as  is  established  by  the  Church 
having  ever  since  taken  St.  Paul's  view  of  the  situation, 
and  he  is  withstood  face  to  face,  not  submitted  to,  by  the 
younger  Apostle,  who,  had  he  been  in  the  wrong,  would 
have  had  his  rebellion — for  it  would  have  been  no  less — 
as  clearly  censured  in  Holy  Writ  as  St.  Peter's  denial  of 
Christ,  to  warn  all  others  by  so  terrible  a  fall,  instead  of 
standing  as  it  does  now,  by  the  will  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
as  a  proof  of  St.  Paul's  zeal  and  loyalty  for  the  truth  of  the 
Gospel,  and  a  ground  of  justifiable  satisfaction  to  himself.^ 

/  Lastly,  the  sketch  which  St.  Paul  gives  of  the  divinely- 
ordered  constitution  of  the  Church  becomes  more  than 
merely  defective  if  there  were  any  office  and  authority 
higher  than  that  of  an  Apostle  instituted  by  Christ,  and 
forming  the  immediate  link  of  connexion — the  neck,  so  to 
speak — between  the  Head  and  the  Body. 

It  is  clear,  then,  that  in  his  capacity  of  Doctor  of  the 

^  Gerson  says  that  there  was  a  direct  appeal  on  St.  Paul's  part 
against  vSt.  Peter  to  the  Church,  and  that  if  St.  Peter  had  persisted  he 
would  have' been  liable  to  condemnation  by  the  Church.  "^Unde  et 
si  Petrus  desistere  noluisset,  fuisset  ab  Ecclesie  condemnandus." — An 
liceat  in  Caiisis  Fidei  a  Papa  appellare  ? 


CHAP.  I.]  LEGAL   EVIDENCF.    OF    SCRIPTURE.  39 

Gentiles,  and  chief  theologian  of  the  primitive  Christian 
Church,  St.  Paul,  who  expressly  states  himself  to  "  have 
kept  back  nothing  that  was  profitable,"  and  to  "  have  not 
shunned  to  declare  the  whole  counsel  of  God  "  (Acts  xx. 
20,  27),  not  merely  avoids  any  allusion  in  his  copious 
writings  to  the  "  privilege  of  Peter,"  but  uses  language  so 
manifestly  inconsistent  therewith  as  to  necessarily  mislead  all 
in  that  day  to  whom  those  writings  might  come,  supposing 
that  privilege  to  be  a  matter  of  Divine  truth  ;  while  the 
silence  of  St.  James  also,  as  indeed  of  all  the  other  New 
Testament  writers,  may  be  taken  as  proof  that  this  was  not 
one  of  St.  Paul's  misconstrued  teachings  which  had  been 
perverted,  and  needing  correction  at  some  other  hand,  but 
the  received  doctrine  of  Apostolic  days. 

There  is  besides  this  direct  Pauline  gloss  on  the  alleged 
privilege  of  Peter,  an  indirect  one,  even  fuller  in  its  state- 
ments, and  scarcely  less  convincing  in  its  form.  It  is  quite 
possible  to  argue  that  we  have  no  right  to  draw  conclusions 
from  St.  Peter's  marked  reticence  as  to  his  own  supremacy, 
because  we  are  not  in  a  position  to  judge  what  kind  of 
acts  and  language  he  would  have  used  to  enforce  it,  and 
we  are  not  justified  in  treating  our  mere  guess-work  as  to 
what  would  or  would  not  have  been  fit  and  proper  for  him 
to  say  and  do,  as  if  it  were  a  solid  piece  of  evidence.  In 
truth,  this  modeof  reasoning  (technically  called  the  a  priori 
argument)  is  itself  the  mainstay  of  every  Roman  con- 
troversialist who  pleads  the  pi-actical  necessity  of  a  visible 
and  infallible  Head  of  the  Church,  as  a  proof  that  such  a 
head  does  really  exist,  so  that  the  objection  is  not  valid 
from  that  quarter ;  but  it  may  be  allowed  to  pass,  since  it 
can  readily  be  dispensed  with,  inasmuch  as  St.  Paul  sup- 
plies us  with  all  the  illustration  required. 

The  peculiar  and  altogether  exceptional  mode  of  St. 
Paul's  appointment  to  the  Apostolic  office,  and  the  leading 
part  he  took  against  the  Judaizing  school  in  the  infant 
Church,  caused  his  rank  to  be  frequently  called  in  question, 
and  his  authority  disputed.  Hence,  he  was  obliged  to  mag- 
nify his  office,  and  to  insist  on  his  powers  and  privileges, 
and  that  freq.uently ;  albeit  there  could  be  no  such  impe- 


I     40  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    I. 

rative  obligation  for  him  to  do  so,  as  for  St.  Peter  to  do 
the  like,  if  it  were  true,  as  we  are  now  told,  that  the  whole 
relation  of  every  human  soul  to  the  Father  and  Christ 
depends  on,  and  is  inextricably  bound  up  with,  its  relation  to 
the  See  of  Peter.  The  rejection  of  St.  Paul  might  be 
and  in  fact  was,  perfectly  consistent  with  acceptance  ot 
Christianity  and  with  membership  of  the  Church,  for  it  did 
not  involve  the  extrusion  of  the  Judaizers  who  refused  to 
acknowledge  him,  but  the  rejection  of  St.  Peter,  on  the 
Ultramontane  theory,  would  have  been  apostasy  from  the 
Faith  itself.  St.  Peter  would,  therefore,  have  been  bound, 
if  not  on  his  own  behalf,  yet  on  that  of  his  successors,  to 
allege  his  peculiar  charter  as  plainly  as  St.  Paul  does  his 
Apostolic  character. 

Let  us  now  collect  and  examine  the  most  salient  in- 
stances of  this  vindication  of  his  rights  by  St.  Paul : — ■ 

a.  *'  Paul,  a  servant  of  Jesus  Christ,  called  to  be  an  apostle,  sepa- 
rated unto  the  gospel  of  God  (which  he  had  promised  afore  by  his 
prophets  in  the  holy  scriptures),  concerning  his  Son  Jesus  Christ  our 
Lord,  which  was  made  of  the  seed  of  David  according  to  the  flesh  ; 
and  declared  to  be  the  Son  of  God  with  power,  according  to  the 
spirit  of  holiness,  by  the  resurrection  from  the  dead  :  by  Whom  we 
have  received  grace  and  apostleship,  for  obedience  to  the  faith  among 
all  nations,  for  His  name  :  among  whom  are  ye  also  the  called  of 
Jesus  Christ  :  to  all  that  be  in  Rome,  beloved  of  God,  called  to  be 
saints  :  Grace  to  you  and  peace  from  God  our  Father,  and  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ." — Rom.  i.  1-7. 

b.  *'  For  I  speak  to  you  Gentiles,  inasmuch  as  I  am  the  apostle  of 
the  Gentiles,  I  magnify  mine  office." — Rom.  xi.  13. 

c.  '*  Nevertheless,  brethren,  I  have  written  the  more  boldly  unto 
you  in  some  sort,  as  putting  you  in  mind,  because  of  the  grace  that  is 
given  to  me  of  God,  that  I  should  be  the  minister  of  Jesus  Christ 
to  the  Gentiles,  ministering  the  gospel  of  God,  that  the  offering  up  of 
the  Gentiles  might  be  acceptable,  being  sanctified  by  the  Holy  Ghost. 
I  have  therefore  whereof  I  may  glory  through  Jesus  Christ  in  those 
things  which  pertain  to  God.  For  I  will  not  dare  to  speak  of  any  of 
those  things  which  Christ  hath  not  wrought  by  me,  to  make  the  Gen- 
tiles obedient,  by  word  and  deed,  through  mighty  signs  and  wonders, 
by  the  power  of  the  Spirit  of  God  ;  so  that  from  Jerusalem,  and  round 
about  unto  Illyricum,  I  have  fully  preached  the  gospel  of  Christ. 
Yea,  so  have  I  strived  to  preach  the  gospel,  not  where  Christ  was 
named,  lest  I  should  build  upon  another  man's  foundation." — 
Rom.  XV.  15-20. 


i!#^u^ 


CHAP.    I.]  LEGAL    EVIDENCE  OF    vSCRIPTUKE.  41 

d.  "  I  write  not  these  things  to  shame  you,  but  as  my  beloved  sons 
I  warn  you.  For  though  ye  have  ten  thousand  instructors  in  Christ, 
yet  have  ye  not  many  fathers  :  for  in  Christ  Jesus  1  have  begotten 
you  through  the  gospel.  Wherefore  I  beseech  you,  be  ye  followers  of 
nie.  For  this  cause  have  I  sent  unto  you  Timotheus,  who  is  my  be- 
loved son,  and  faithful  in  the  Lord,  who  shall  bring  you  into  remem- 
brance of  my  ways  which  be  in  Christ,  as  I  teach  everywhere  in  every 
church.  Now  some  are  puffed  up,  as  though  I  would  not  come  to 
you.  But  I  will  come  to  you  shortly,  if  the  Lord  will,  and  will  know, 
not  the  speech  of  them  which  are  puffed  up,  but  the  power.  For  the 
kingdom  of  God  is  not  in  word,  but  in  power.  What  will  ye  ?  shall  I 
come  unto  you  with  a  rod,  or  in  love,  and  in  the  spirit  of  meekness  ?  ** 
— I  Cor.  iv.  14-21. 

e.  "For  I  verily,  as  absent  in  body,  but  present  in  spirit,  have 
judged  already,  as  though  I  were  present,  concerning  him  that  hath 
so  done  this  deed.  In  the  name  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  when  ye 
are  gathered  together,  and  my  spirit,  with  the  power  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  to  deliver  such  an  one  unto  Satan  for  the  destructiori 
of  the  flesh,  that  the  spirit  may  be  saved  in  the  day  of  the  Lord  Jesus.  ** 
—I  Cor.  V.  3-5. 

/.  "  But  as  God  hath  distributed  to  every  man,  as  the  Lord  hath 
called  ever)'  one,  so  let  him  walk.  And  so  ordain  I  in  all  [the]  churches, 
(Gr.  ifQi  ovTOiQ  tf  toIq  tKKXijoiaig  iranatg  Staraaaofiai  :  Vulg.  e/  siciit 
in  omnibus  ecclesiis  doceo)." — i  Cor.  vii.  17. 

g.  "Be  ye  followers  of  me,  even  as  I  also  am  of  Christ.  Now  I 
praise  you,  brethren,  that  ye  remember  me  in  all  things,  and  keep  the 
ordinances,  as  I  delivered  them  to  you." — i  Cor.  xi.  i,  2. 

h.  "  Now  concerning  the  collection  for  the  saints,  as  I  have  given 
order  to  the  churches  of  Galatia,  even  so  do  ye.  Upon  the  first  day 
of  the  week  let  every  one  of  you  lay  by  him  in  store,  as  God  hath 
prospered  him,  that  there  be  no  gatherings  when  I  come.  And  whea 
I  come,  whomsoever  ye  shall  approve  by  your  letters,  them  will  I  send 
to  bring  your  liberality  unto  Jerusalem.  And  if  it  be  meet  that  I 
go  also,  they  shall  go  with  me." — i  Cor.  xvi.  1-4. 

/.  *'  For  to  this  end  also  did  I  write,  that  I  might  know  the  proof 
of  you,  whether  ye  be  obedient  in  all  things.  To  whom  ye  forgive 
anything,  I  forgive  also  :  for  if  I  forgave  anything,  to  whom  I  forgave 
it,  for  your  sakes  forgave  I  it  in  the  person  of  Christ." — 2  Cor.  ii.  9,  10. 

/.  *'  For  I  suppose  I  was  not  a  whit  behind  the  very  chiefest 
apostles." — 2  Cor.  xi.  5. 

k.  *•  Beside  those  things  that  are  without,  that  which  cometh  upoD 
me  daily,  the  care  of  all  the  churches."  (Gr.  »)  n'lpi^va  iraauiv  rStv 
iKK\ri<jiuiv  :  Vulg.  soiicittuio omnium  ecclesianun.) — 2  Cor.  xi.  28. 

/.  '*  I  am  become  a  fool  in  glorying  :  ye  have  compelled  me :  for 
I  ought  to  have  been  commended  of  you  :  for  in  nothing  am  I  behind 
the  very  chiefest  apostles,  though  I  be  nothing.  Truly  the  jagns  of 
an  apostle  were  wrought  among  you  in  all  patience,  in  signs,  anil 


42  THE    PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [cHAP.    I. 

^fv•onders,  and  mighty  deeds.  For  what  is  it  wherein  ye  were  inferior 
to  other  churches,  except  it  be  that  I  myself  was  not  burdensome  to 
you?  forgive  me  this  wrong." — 2  Cor.  xii.  11-13. 

m,  "  This  is  the  third  time  I  am  coming  to  you.  In  the  mouth  of 
two  or  three  witnesses  shall  every  word  be  established.  I  told  you 
before,  and  foretell  you,  as  if  I  were  present,  the  second  time  ;  and 
being  absent  now  I  write  to  them  which  heretofore  have  sinned,  and 
to  all  other,  that,  if  I  come  again,  I  will  not  spare  :  since  ye  seek  a 
proof  of  Christ  speaking  in  me,  which  to  you-ward  is  not  weak,  but  is 

mighty  in  you Therefore  I  write  these  things  being  absent, 

lest  being  present  I  should  use  sharpness,  according  to  the  power 
which  the  Lord  hath  given  me  to  edification,  and  not  to  destruction." 
— 2  Cor.  xiii,  1-3,  10. 

;/.  "Paul,  an  apostle,  (not  of  men,  neither  by  man,  but  by  Jesus 
Christ,  and  God  the  Father,  who  raised  him  from  the  dead)." — 
Gal.  i.  I. 

<7.  "  But  I  certify  you,  brethren,  that  the  gospel  which  was  preached 
of  me  is  not  after  man.  For  I  neither  received  it  of  man,  neither  was 
I  taught  it,  but  by  the  revelation  of  Jesus  Christ." — Gal.  ii.  ii,  12. 

/.  "  Those  things,  which  ye  have  both  learned,  and  received,  and 
heard,  and  seen  in  me,  do  :  and  the  God  of  peace  shall  be  with  you." 
— Philipp,  iv.  9. 

q.  "Now  we  command  you,  brethren,  in  the  name  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  that  ye  withdraw  yourselves  from  eveiy  brother  that 
walketh  disorderly,  and  not  after  the  tradition  which  he  received  of 

us And  if  any  man  obey  not  our  word  by  this  epistle,  note 

that  man,  and  have  no  company  with  him,  that  he  may  be  ashamed." 
— 2  Thess.  iii.  6,  14. 

r.  "  Thou,  therefore,  my  son,  be  strong  in  the  grace  that  is  in 
Christ  Jesus.  And  the  things  that  thou  hast  heard  of  me  among 
many  witnesses,  the  same  commit  thou  to  faithful  men,  who  shall  be 
al)le  to  teach  others  also." — 2  Tim.  ii.  I,  2. 

s.  "  For;'  this  cause  left  I  thee  in  Crete,  that  thou  shouldest  set  in 
order  the  things  that  are  wanting,  and  ordain  elders  in  every  city,  as  I 
had  appointed  thee." — Tit.  i.  5. 

Besides  all  these  statements  of  St.  Paul's  apostolic  autho- 
rity, we  find  disciplinary  enactments,  which  need  not 
h^  cited  in  detail,  laid  down  by  him  on  the  following 
points : — 

1.  Observance  of  Jewish  distinctions  of  food  and  of 
days,  Rom.  xiv.  1-6,  21 ;  Coloss.  ii.  16. 

2.  Lawsuits  between  Christians,  i  Cor.  vi.  1-4. 

3.  Marriage-tie  between  Christians  and  heathens,  i  Cor. 
vii.  12-17. 


CHAP.    I.]  LEGAL   EVIDENCE   OF    SCRIPTURE.  43 

4.  Lawfulness  of  using  pagan  sacrifices  as  food,  i  Cor. 
viii. ;  X.  27-28. 

5.  Head-dress  of  men  and   women  at  public   prayer, 
I  Cor.  xi.  4-16. 

6.  Preparation  for  Communion,  i  Cor.  xi.  28. 

7.  Vernacular  language  in  public  worship,   i  Cor.  xiv. 

8.  Order  in  public  worship,  i  Cor.  xiv.  27-33,  4°- 

9.  Women  forbidden  to  preach,  i  Cor.  xiv.  34,  35. 

10.  Weekly  offertory,  i  Cor.  xvi.  2. 

11.  Intercessory  prayer,  i  Tim.  ii.  i,  2. 

12.  Dress  and  conduct  of  women,  i  Tim.  ii.  9-15. 

13.  Qualifications  of  bishops  and  deacons,  i  Tim.  iii. 
I- 13;  Tit.  i.  7-9. 

14.  Qualification  of  Church  widows,  i  Tim.  v.  9-13. 

15.  Excommunication  of  heretics  after  two  admonitions. 
Tit.  iii.  10. 

These  disciplinary  rulings  need  not  be  further  considered, 
but  it  is  important  to  cite  them  as  showing  what  kind  of 
matters  we  might  fairly  expect  to  have  found  in  St.  Peter's 
Epistles  had  he  been  supreme  ruler  as  well  as  chief  teacher 
in  the  Church  of  Apostolic  times.  Yet  it  is  desirable  to 
emphasize  certain  results  of  the  fuller  citations  just  given, 
excluding  such  of  those  texts  as  we  may  fairly  hold  to 
denote  no  more  than  the  degree  of  rank  and  power  common 
to  the  Apostolic  body,  albeit  even  these  are  not  paralleled 
l)y  anything  in  St.  Peter's  Epistles. 

a.  St.  Paul  alleges  himself  to  be  "  not  a  whit  \al.  in 
nothing]  behind  the  very  chiefest  Apostles,"  making  no 
exception  in  favour  of  St.  Peter  or  St.  James.    See  atite  (J). 

b.  He  states  that  his  Apostolate  and  his  teaching  are 
both  directly  from  Christ  Himself,  and  not  mediately  (like 
St.  Matthias's)  through  other  Apostles,  thus  showing  that 
he  was  entirely  independent  of  St.  Peter  {n  and  o). 

c.  He  claims  the  whole  field  of  the  "  Church  of  the 
Uncircumcision "  as  his  own,  to  the  direct  and  specified 
exclusion  of  St.  Peter,  alleging  himself  further  to  be  "///^," 
not  an^  "  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles  "  {b  and  c). 


44  THE   PKTRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    I. 

d.  In  virtue  of  this  claim,  he  demands  the  obedience  of 
the  Roman  Churchy  giving  no  hint  throughout  the  Epistle 
to  it  of  any  superior,  previous,  or  co-existing  claim  on  St. 
Peter's  part  {c). 

e.  He  tells  the  Church  of  Corinth  that  the  only  parti- 
cular in  which  it  was  inferior  to  any  other  Church  was  that 
he  did  not  permit  it  to  defray  his  expenses.  He  gives  no 
hint  that  Antioch  or  Rome,  as  St.  Peter's  see,  had  any 
priority  or  authority  over  Corinth  (/). 

/.  He  declares  that  the  "care  of  all  the  Churches"  is 
his  daily  task  {k). 

g.  He  ordains  rules  to  be  observed  "  in  ail  the 
Churches  "  (/). 

h.  He  sends  his  legates  with  plenary  powers  to  act  for 
him,  alleges  his  commission  to  them  as  their  full  warrant, 
and,  unlike  St.  Peter  (2  Pet.  i.  13-15),  provides  at  least 
one  personal  successor  to  himself,  to  transmit  his  teaching 
authoritatively  (r  and  s). 

i.  He  directs  the  excommunication  of  all  persons  who 
refuse  to  accept  his  injunctions  as  being  in  effect  those  of 
Christ  Himself  {q). 

Now,  if  it  were  St.  Paul  who  is  alleged  to  have  been  the 
infallible  and  sovereign  head  of  the  Church  Militant  on 
earth,  it  would  be  extremely  easy  to  support  such  an 
allegation  by  the  cited  passages,  all  of  which  are  at  least 
consistent  wdth  such  a  theory,  and  some  of  which  even 
seem  to  force  it  on  our  attention.  Nevertheless,  no  such 
allegation  has  ever  been  made  on  St.  Paul's  behalf.^  We 
can  guess  what  use  would  have  been  made  of  it  on  St. 
Peter's  behalf,  had  such  evidence  been  producible  from  the 
Petrine  Epistles. 

Further,  not  only  are  we  justified  in  saying  that  the 
claim  made  for  St.  Peter  absolutely  requires  the  production 
of  some  at  least  equivalent,  if  not  yet  more  cogent,  Scriptural 
testimony,  confessedly  non-existent,  but  that  the  Pauline 
assertions,  «,  b,  c,  d,  e^  /,  and  g,  are  wholly  inconsistent  with 

^  See,  however,  a  statement  by  St.  Peter  Damiani  in  Chapter  v. 
p.  184. 


CHAP.  I.]  LEGAL    EVIDENCE   OF   SCRIPTURE.  45 

and  destructive  of  the  alleged  "  Privilege  of  Peter,"  as 
stated  by  the  modern  Church  of  Rome,  unless  some  over- 
whelmingly rebutting  evidence,  unequivocally  bearing  the 
stamp  of  Divine  revelation,  can  be  adduced  in  its  favour 
from  some  other  quarter  than  Holy  Scripture — a  question 
to  be  considered  later. 

The  charter  of  Privilege,  so  far,  is  shown  to  be  restricted 
to  the  words  in  St.  Matt.  xvi.  i8,  "Thou  art  Peter,  and 
upon  this  rock  I  will  build  My  Church."  This  sentence 
obviously  does  not  satisfy  the  second  condition — that  of 
clearness — laid  down  by  the  Canonists,  as  necessary  to 
fulfil  the  legal  requirements  of  a  claim  of  privilege,  because 
there  is  confessedly  an  ambiguity  in  its  wording,  which  is 
not  certain,  manifest,  and  unmistakable  in  meaning. 

The  ambiguity  consists  in  a  play  upon  words,  so  to 
speak,  visible  in  the  Greek  text,  which  runs  thus :  2i)  el 
lleTpoc,  kal  eirt  ravryj  r^  TTiTf)^  o\koIo^i](tu)  /.iov  r;/i'  iicKXr}(Tiai'  : 
a  peculiarity  reproduced  by  the  Vulgate,  which  translates 
thus  :  Tu  es  Petrus^  et  super  hatic  petrain  ccdificabo  ecdesiam 
meant. 

With  this  compare  the  partially  parallel  passage  in  St. 
John  i.  42,  "And  when  Jesus  beheld  him,  He  said, 
Thou  art  Simon  the  son  of  Jona :  thou  shalt  be  called 
Cephas,  which  is  by  interpretation,  A  stone."  Here  the 
Greek  runs:  2i)  KXrjdnat]  Krt<pug,  o  epfAqt'evsTai  UiTpog ;  and 
the  Vulgate :  2>/  vocaberis  Cephas ;  quod  mterpretatur 
Petrus. 

Obviously,  to  warrant  the  stress  laid  by  Roman  theo- 
logians on  this  obscure  saying  of  our  Lord's,  the  satne 
word  ought  to  be  used  in  both  clauses  of  the  sentence, 
and  it  should  run  in  the  Greek  :  2u  ti  IliTpogj  i:ai  ItI 
rovT^  T^  ntrp<i),  Jk'.r.X.,  or  else  2i)  el  -rreTpa  in  the  first 
clause ;  and  in  the  Vulgate :  Tu  es  Petrus,  et  super  hujic 
Petrum,  dr^Cy  or  else  we  ought  to  have  Tu  es  Petra  in 
the  earlier  member.  As  the  clauses  actually  stand,  there 
is  contrast  as  well  as  likeness  implied,  and  the  stone, 
although  akin  to  the  rock,  is  something  different  and 
apart  from  it,  less  in  dimensions,  stability,  and  importance, 


46  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    I. 

for  though  TTfTpoQ  is  used  with  extreme  rarity  in  Attic 
Greek  to  signify  a  rock,  it  is  never  so  found  in  the  LXX, 
or  the  New  Testament. 

An  ingenious  reply  was  devised  by  Cardinal  Bellarmine 
to  this  objection,  which  has  been  frequently  reproduced 
since  his  time.  It  is  that  our  Lord,  speaking  in  Syriac  or 
Aramaic,  actually  did  use  the  same  word  in  both  clauses, 
saying,  "  Thou  art  Cepha,  and  upon  this  Cepha  I  will  build 
My  Church."  The  answer  to  this  is  fivefold,  (i)  It  is 
matter  of  reasonable  conjecture  and  high  probability  only, 
not  of  absolute  certainty,  that  our  Lord  did  use,  or  must 
have  used,  the  same  word,  and  indeed  that  He  spoke  in 
Syriac  or  Aramaic  at  all,  and  not  in  Greek.  (2)  In  any 
case,  if  His  original  words  are  not  those  of  the  Greek  St. 
Matthew,  they  are  for  ever  lost  to  us,  and  since  the  very  first 
and  fundamental  rule  of  Canon  law  as  to  any  privilege 
is  that  the  document  containing  it  must  be  produced,  this 
plea  is  barred.  (3)  For  us,  St.  Matthew's  Greek  is  the 
original  text,  and  not  a  mere  translation,  so  that  even  if 
we  were  sure  of  the  unproved  assertion  made  by  Bellarmine, 
we  should  yet  be  compelled  to  accept  St.  Matthew's  varia- 
tion of  the  two  words,  as  divinely  inspired  for  the  express 
purpose  of  marking  a  difference  which  the  Syriac  failed  to 
accentuate  or  suggest.  (4)  In  any  case,  no  Roman  Catholic 
is  at  liberty  to  raise  the  plea  at  all,  because  he  is  certainly 
bound  by  the  decrees  of  Trent,  and  perhaps  by  those  of 
the  Vatican,  to  accept  the  "  old  Latin  Vulgate  edition  as 
holy  and  canonical  "  {Cone.  Vatic.  Constit.  de  Fide,  cap.  ii.), 
and  inasmuch  as  this  version  marks  the  antithesis  between 
Petrus  and  petram,  Roman  Catholics  are  barred  from 
asserting  their  identity.  (5)  Lastly,  as  regards  those  not 
so  restricted,  and  w^ho  are  at  liberty  to  look  at  the  question 
as  a  purely  textual  and  grammatical  one,  the  reply  is  direct 
and  conclusive,  that  both  the  Hebrew  Cepha  (^S^?)  and 
the  Peshitta  Syriac  Kipha  (]£)Vd),  when  they  mean  rock 
or  stone,  are  of  the  feminine  gender,  which  Cephas,:or  Peter, 
as  a  masculine  noun  denoting  a  man's  name,  certainly  is  not, 
either  in  Syriac  or  Greek;  and  in  the  ancient  Syriac  version 


CHAP.    I.]  LEGAL   EVIDENCE   OF    SCRIP  I U  RE.  47 

of  this  very  passage,  St.  Matt.  xvi.  18  (doubtless  the  most 
trustworthy  gloss  obtainable),  the  feminine  pronoun  is 
found  united  with  the  second  Cepha  thus,  ^^  ]ic5l 
{hadhe  Kipha  =  ha?ic  petram),  not  ]jai  {hana  =  hunc 
Petrum)^  which  Bellarmine's  argument  would  require.^ 

If  the  question  be  now  regarded  from  another  Biblical 
standpoint,  the  result  is  not  more  favourable  to  the 
Ultramontane  claim.  The  theological  principle  known 
as  the  analogy  of  faith,  already  referred  to,  demands 
that  the  Gospel  shall  always  be  at  the  very  least  on 
an  equality  with  the  Law%  and  that,  wherever  possible, 
it  shall  move  in  a  higher  plane,  but  that  it  shall  never 
descend  under  any  circumstances  whatever  to  a  lower 
level,  far  less  substitute  a  type  for  a  reality,  a  shadow  for 
a  substance. 

Now,  wherever  in  the  Old  Testament  the  word  rock  is 
spiritually  used  to  denote  either  the  basis  and  strength  of 
the  Hebrew  Church,  or  the  refuge  and  confidence  of  a 
single  believer,  it  invariably  means  none  save  Almighty  God 
Himself,  in  which  sense  it  occurs  no  fewer  than  thirty-five 
times. 

Here  are  a  few  select  examples  : — 

1.  "He  is  the  rock,  His  work  is  perfect:  for  all  His  ways  are 
judgment :  a  God  of  truth  and  without  iniquity,  just  and  right  is  He." 
— Deut.  xxii.  4. 

2.  "Of  the  Rock  that  begat  thee  thou  art  unmindful,  and  hast 
foi^otten  God  that  formed  thee."~Ueut.  xxxii.  18. 

*  This  Peshltta  version  (which  in  this  place  agrees  precisely  M'ith 
the  Curetonian  Gospels),  assuming  that  Christ  spoke  Syro- Aramaic,  is 
probably  the  nearest  reproduction  extant  of  His  exact  words,  and  is  at 
any  rate  good  authority  for  the  interpretation  of  St.  Matt.  xvi.  18,  in 
the  second  century.  And  it  is  very  noteworthy  that  in  two  other 
extremely  old  Syriac  versions,  the  Palestinian  Lectionary,  published 
by  Count  Miniscalchi  Erizzo  from  a  Vatican  MS.,  and  the  "  Phil- 
oxenian"  version  by  Thomas  of  Heraclea  (a.d.  533),  the  Greek  word 
Petros  occurs  in  the  first  clause  in  Syriac  letters  ;  while  the  native 
word  Ktphd  is  in  the  second  clause  of  the  Palestinian  version,  and  its 
synonym  shti'd  in  the  second  clause  of  the  Philoxenian,  thus  studiously 
avoiding  even  the  chance  of  identifying  the  Rock  with  Peter. 


48  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    I. 

3.  "There  is  none  holy  as  the  Lord:  for  there  is  none  beside 
Thee  :  neither  is  there  any  rock  like  our  God." — i  Sam.  ii.  2. 

4.  "  The  Lord  is  my  rock,  and  my  fortress,  and  my  deliverer  ;  the 
God  of  my  rock.  For  who  is  God,  save  the  Lord  ?  and  who  is  a  rock, 
save  our  God  ?  " — 2  Sam.  xxii.  2,  3,  32. 

5.  "  The  God  of  Israel  said,  the  Rock  of  Israel  spake  to  me,  He 
that  ruleth  over  men  must  be  just,  ruling  in  the  fear  of  God." — 2  Sam. 
xxiii.  3. 

6.  "  Truly  my  soul  waiteth  upon  God  :  from  Him  cometh  my 
salvation.     He  only  is  my  rock  and  my  salvation  ;  He  is  my  defence  ; 

1  shall  not  be  greatly  moved." — Psalm  Ixii.  i,  2. 

7.  "  Trust  ye  in  the  Lord  for  ever,  for  in  the  Lord  Jehovah  is  the 
Rock  of  ages." — Isa.  xxvi.  4  (marg.). 

8.  "  Is  there  a  God  beside  Me?  yea,  no  Rock,  I  know  not  any.' 
— Isa.  xliv.  8  (marg.). 

The  remaining  examples  are   Deut.   xxxii.   15,  30,  31  ; 

2  Sam.  xxii.  47  ;  Psalm  xviii.  2,  31,  46  ;  xix.  14  (marg.); 
xvii.  5  ;  xxviii.  i ;  xxxi.  2,  3  ;  xlii.  9  ;  Ixi.  2  ;  Ixii.  2,  7  ; 
Ixxi.  3  (marg.) ;  Ixxiii.  26  (marg.) ;  Ixxviii.  35  ;  Ixxxix,  26; 
xcii.  15  ;  xciv.  22  (marg.);  xcv.  i  ;  Isa.  viii.  14;  xxx.  29 
(marg.) ;  li.  r  ;  Hab.  i.  12  (marg.). 

Even  if  this  remarkable  identity  of  spiritual  application 
were  not  preserved,  we  have  three  authoritative  glosses  in 
the  New  Testament  itself — one  by  our  Lord,  given  with 
slight  verbal  differences  by  St.  Matthew  vii.  24,  25,  and  St. 
Luke  vi.  47,  48  : — 

"  Therefore  whosoever  heareth  these  sayings  of  Mine,  and  doeth 
them,  I  will  liken  him  unto  a  wise  man,  which  built  his  house  upon 
a  rock  ;  and  the  rain  descended,  and  the  floods  came,  and  the  winds 
blew,  and  beat  upon  that  house  ;  and  it  fell  not :  for  it  was  founded 
upon  a  rock." 

**  Whosoever  cometh 'to  Me,  and  heareth  My  sayings,  and  doeth 
them,  I  will  sho\v  you  to  whom  he  is  like :  He  is  like  a  man  which 
built  an  house,  and  digged  deep,  and  laid  the  foundation  on  a  rock  : 
and  when  the  flood  arose,  the  stream  beat  vehemently  upon  that 
house,  and  could  not  shake  it  :  for  it  was  founded  upon  a  rock." 

St.  Paul  supplies  the  others,  i  Cor.  x.  4,  and  i  Cor.  iii. 
2  : — 

*  *  They  drank  of  that  spiritual  Rock  that  followed  them  :  and  that 
Rock  was  Christ." 

"  For  other  foundation  can  no  man  lay  than  that  is  laid,  which  is 
Jesus  Christ." 


CHAP.  I.]  LEGAL    EVIDENCE   OF   SCRIPTURE.  49 

If  it  had  so  happened  that  these  New  Testament  illustra- 
tions of  the  meaning  of  St.  Matthew  xvi.  18  were  absent, 
and  that  in  their  stead  others  were  found  which  seemed  to 
warrant,  or  even  to  enforce,  the  Ultramontane  interpreta- 
tion, then  in  that  case  there  would  be  here  the  only  excep- 
tion, and  that  a  wholly  unaccountable  one,  to  the  rule 
which  insists  that  the  Gospel  plane  must  be  higher  than 
the  Mosaic,  wherever  a  higher  plane  is  conceivable  and 
possible.  For  extol  as  we  may  the  privilege  of  Peter,  clothe 
him  with  one  semi-divine  attribute  after  another,  magnify 
as  we  choose  his  share  in  the  establishment  of  Christianity, 
and  his  authority  over  the  Apostolic  Church ;  nevertheless, 
the  interval  between  him  and  God  cannot  be  appreciably 
abridged,  the  finite  cannot  be  stretched  so  as  even  to  sug- 
gest the  infinite.  And  if  the  Infinite  and  Almighty  was  the 
Rock  of  Israel,  while  Peter  is  the  rock  of  Christendom, 
then  the  Gospel  has  sunk  unspeakably  and  immeasurably 
below  the  Law.  Even  in  human  affairs,  every  one  acknow- 
ledges the  wide  difference — perfectly  measurable  though  it 
be — there  is  between  the  personal  visit  of  a  king,  coming 
in  a  recognised  and  public  fashion  to  his  subjects,  and  that 
of  a  mere  viceroy,  though  loaded  with  titles,  decorated  with 
orders,  and  clothed  with  plenipotentiary  powers ;  and  no 
one  could  be  persuaded  that  equal  favour  had  been  shown 
to  two  cities,  one  of  which  had  welcomed  the  sovereign  as 
a  personal  guest,  while  the  other  had  perforce  to  put  up 
with  his  deputy.  So  ends  our  inquiry  into  that  part  of  the 
evidence  for  the  personal  privilege  of  Peter  which  is  pro- 
fessedly based  on  Holy  Scripture,  regarded  in  the  light  of  a 
purely  legal  document  of  absolutely  indefeasible  authority, 
and  as  the  main  evidence  adduced  in  support  of  the  claim. 
It  is  obvious  that  unless  some  corroborative  testimony  of 
equally  high  and  indisputable  character  can  be  discovered, 
the  case  is  not  made  out,  and  does  not  even  satisfy  several 
of  the  tests  of  validity  exacted  by  the  Roman  Canon  Law 
itself  in.  all  claims  of  privilege. 

The  next  branch  of  the  inquiry  is  to  ascertain  whether 
Scripture  yields   any  more  satisfactory  proof  of  divinely 


50  THE    TETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  I. 

granted  primacy  and  supremacy  on  behalf  of  the  See,  as 
distinguished  from  the  Pope,  of  Rome.  This  done,  the 
Scriptural  argument  will  be  closed,  and  it  will  then  remain 
to  inquire  finally  whether  the  other  evidence  producible, 
apart  from  Scripture,  is  of  such  a  kind  as  to  create  a 
reasonable  presumption  in  favour  of  the  Divine,  or  at  least 
Apostolical,  character  of  Papal  supremacy,  analogous  to 
that  which  exists  for  infant  baptism,  for  the  tenet  of 
Eucharistic  sacrifice,  or  for  Sunday  observance. 

We  will  therefore  first  discuss  that  part  of  the  Papal 
claims  (also  adduced  as  resting  on  express  Divine  revela- 
tion) which  alleges  the  indefeasible  primacy  of  the  city  and 
see  of  Rome,  asserted  to  be  so  indissolubly  bound  up  with 
the  Petrine  privilege  that  even  to  suggest  that  the  Chief 
Patriarch  of  the  Christian  Church  might  have  his  see  trans- 
ferred to  some  other  city,  say  Jerusalem,  in  time  to  come, 
is  to  incur  the  Vatican  anathemas.^  If  this  be  so,  we  shall 
certainly  find  clear  analogical  preparation  for  it  in  the  Old 
Testament,  and  evident  development  of  the  idea  in  the 
New. 

At  first,  then,  there  appears  no  centre  of  worship  what- 
ever. The  altar  depends  for  its  locality  on  the  casual  halt 
of  the  nomad  Patriarchs  (Gen.  xii.  7;  xiii.  18;  xxi.  33); 
and  the  earliest  intimation  of  a  more  settled  shrine  is  found 
in  Jacob's  vow  at  Bethel  (Gen.  xxviii.  16-22).  During  the 
Exodus  the  Tabernacle  was  the  travelling  "field-chapel" 
of  the  Israelite  host  (Numb.  ii.  17;  x.  17,  21).  But  in  the 
book  of  Deuteronomy  repeatedly  occurs  a  declaration  that 
a  national  centre  of  worship  would  be  set  up  in  Canaan, 
where  alone  the  rites  of  sacrifice  could  be  lawfully  and 
acceptably  performed.     One  citation  will  suffice  : — 

*'  But  when  ye  go  over  Jordan,  and  dwell  in  the  land  which  the 
Lord  your  God  giveth  you  to  inherit,  and  when  He  giveth  you  rest 
from  all  your  enemies  round  about,  so  that  ye  dwell  in  safety  ;  then 
there  shall  be  a  place  which  the  Lord  your  God  shall  choose  to  cause 
His  Name  to  dwell  there  ;  thither  shall  ye  bring  all  that  I  command 

^  Cone.  Vatican,  Canon  II.  de  Ecclesia. 


CHAP.  I.  LEGAL   EVIDENCE   OF   SCRIPTURE.  5 1 

you  ;  your  burnt  offerings,  and  your  sacrifices,  your  tithes,  and  the 
heave  offering  of  your  hand,  and  all  your  choice  vows  which  ye  v  o\v 
unto  the  Lord." — Deut.  xii.  lo,  ii. 

For  a  considerable  time,  however,  this  central  shrine  was 
not  absolutely  fixed  and  permanent.  Shiloh,  its  first  seat 
(Josh,  xviii.  i),  remained  such  from  the  time  of  Joshua  till 
the  Philistine  capture  of  the  Ark  (i  Sam.  iv.  4,  11),  which 
was  restored  to  Kirjath-Jearim  (i  Sam.  vii.  i,  2),  whence, 
after  a  long  interval,  David  translated  it  to  Jerusalem 
(2  Sam.  vi.  2,  12),  its  final  seat.  With  the  building  of 
Solomon's  temple  begins  the  great  series  of  Divine  pro- 
mises of  permanence  for  this  great  national  shrine,  con- 
ditioned from  the  very  first,  however,  by  possibilities  of 
forfeiture  (i  Kings  ix.  1-9).  To  this  sacred  place  the 
strict  theory  of  the  Law,  albeit  necessarily  relaxed  by  dis- 
pensations, enjoined  every  adult  male  of  the  Hebrew 
nation  to  make  pilgrimages  thrice  every  year  : — 

*•  Three  times  in  a  year  shall  all  thy  males  appear  before  the  Lord 
thy  God  in  the  place  which  lie  shall  choose  ;  in  the  feast  of  unleavened 
bread,  and  in  the  feast  of  weeks,  and  in  the  feast  of  tabernacles  :  and 
they  shall  not  appear  before  the  Lord  empty." — Deut.  xvi.  16. 

And  as  a  practical  fact,  even  when  the  nation,  in  the  post- 
exilic  period,  had  long  ceased  to  be  included  within  the 
borders  of  Palestine,  one  visit,  at  least,  in  a  lifetime  was  as 
much  the  desire  of  every  devout  Jew  as  the  pilgrimage  to 
Mecca  is  of  the  fervent  Moslem  in  our  own  day. 

What  is  especially  noticeable  about  the  series  of  prophe- 
cies concerning  Jerusalem,  both  before  and  after  its  over- 
throw by  the  Chaldeans,  is  that  its  restoration  to  more  than 
its  former  glory  is  always  foretold  in  explicit  terms.  And 
after  deducting  all  the  passages  of  this  kind,  which  may 
fairly  be  explained  in  the  literal  sense  by  the  rebuilding 
under  Ezra  and  Nehemiah,  or  in  the  spiritual  order  by  the 
manifestation  of  Christ  at  Jerusalem,  and  the  origin  of  the 
Gospel  thence  as  its  local  source,  such  as 

**  And  it  shall  come  to  pass  in  the  last  days,  that  the  mountain  of 
the  Lord's  house  shall  be  established  in  the  top  of  the  mountains, 

E   2 


52  THE    PETRINE  CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  I. 

and  shall  be  exalted  above  the  hills  ;  and  all  nations  shall  flow  unto 
it.  And  many  people  shall  go  and  say,  Come  ye,  and  let  us  go  up  to 
the  mountain  of  the  Lord,  to  the  house  of  the  God  of  Jacob  ;  and  He 
will  teach  us  of  His  ways,  and  we  will  walk  in  His  paths  :  for  out  of 
Zion  shall  go  forth  the  law,  and  the  word  of  the  Lord  from  Jeru- 
salem."— Is.  ii.  2,  3, 

there  remains  a  residuum  not  capable  of  being  so  treated, 
in  which  indefeasible  supremacy  appears  to  be  promised. 
Here  are  a  few  examples  : — 

"  Look  upon  Zion,  the  city  of  our  solemnities  :  thine  eyes  shall 
see  Jerusalem  a  quiet  habitation,  a  tabernacle  that  shall  not  be  taken 
down  ;  not  one  of  the  stakes  thereof  shall  ever  be  removed,  neither 
shall  any  of  the  cords  thereof  be  broken." — Is.  xxxiii.  20. 

"And  the  sons  of  strangers  shall  build  thy  walls,  and  their  kings 
shall  minister  unto  thee  ;  for  in  My  wrath  I  smote  thee,  but  in  My 
favour  have  I  had  mercy  on  thee.  Therefore  thy  gates  shall  be  oj>en 
continually  ;  they  shall  not  be  shut  day  nor  night  ;  that  men  may 
bring  unto  thee  the  forces  of  the  Gentiles,  and  that  their  kings  may 
be  brought.  For  the  nation  and  kingdom  that  will  not  serve  thee 
shall  perish  ;  yea,  those  nations  shall  l)e  utterly  wasted.  The  glory 
of  Lebanon  shall  come  unto  thee,  the  fir  tree,  the  pine  tree,  and  thie 
box  together,  to  beautify  the  place  of  My  sanctuary  ;  and  I  will  make 
the  place  of  My  feet  glorious.  The  sons  also  of  them  that  afflicted 
thee  shall  come  bending  unto  thee  ;  and  all  they  that  despised  thee 
shall  bow  themselves  down  at  the  soles  of  thy  feet ;  and  they  shall 
call  thee.  The  city  of  the  Lord,  The  Zion  of  the  Holy  One  of  Israel. 
Whereas  thou  hast  been  forsaken  and  hated,  so  that  no  man  went 
through  thee,  I  will  make  thee  an  eternal  excellency,  a  joy  of  many 
generations." — Is.  Ix.  10-15. 

"  And  I  will  make  her  that  halted  a  remnant,  and  her  that  was 
cast  far  oft  a  strong  nation  :  and  the  Lord  shall  reign  over  them  in 
mount  Zion  from  henceforth,  even  for  ever.  And  thou,  O  tower  of 
the  flock,  the  stronghold  of  the  daughter  of  Zion,  unto  thee  shall  it 
come,  even  the  first  dominion ;  the  ki  ngdom  shall  come  to  the 
daughter  of  Jerusalem." — Micah  iv.  7,  8. 

"And  it  shall  come  to  pass,  that  every  one  that  is  left  of  all  the 
nations  which  came  against  Jerusalem  shall  even  go  up  from  year  to 
year  to  worship  the  King,  the  Lord  of  hosts,  and  10  keep  the  feast  of 
tabernacles.  And  it  shall  be,  that  whoso  will  not  come  up  of  all  the 
families  of  the  earth  unto  Jerusalem  to  worship  the  King,  the  Lord  of 
hosts,  even  upon  them  shall  be  no  rain." — Zech.  xiv.  16,  17. 

There  are  only  four  possible  ways  of  explaining  these 
statements : — [a)  They  are  not  inspired  prophecies  at  all, 


CHAP,    l]  legal   evidence   OF   SCRIPTURE.  53 

but  the  mere  fervent  wishes  and  guesses  of  Hebrew  enthu- 
siasts ;  (b)  their  fulfilment  is  yet  future,  and  points  to  the 
restoration  of  Jerusalem  as  the  central  shrine  of  the  world; 
(c)  they  are  conditional,  albeit  the  condition  is  not  verbally 
expressed,  and  their  promises  have  been  forfeited  by  Jewish 
unbehef ;  {d)  they  are  typical  of  another  and  holier  Jeru- 
salem. The  Roman  controversalist  \s  estopped  from 
accepting  either  (a)  or  {b).  If  he  accept  (r),  he  destroys 
the  argument  for  the  indefeasibility  of  the  similar  position 
claimed  for  Rome,  and  he  is  thus  practically  limited  to  (^, 
and  is  bound  to  show  that  Rome,  by  reasonable  implica- 
tion, if  not  by  necessary  consequence,  fulfils  the  needful 
conditions  as  the  antitype  of  this  Old  Testament  type. 

What  evidence  does  the  New  Testament  yield  on  this 
head? 

{a)  There  is  absolutely  but  one  passage  in  the  Gospels 
which  can  be  said  to  bear  on  the  inquiry,  since  our  Lord's 
mention  of  Jerusalem  as  "  the  city  of  the  Great  King " 
(St.  Matt  V.  35)  does  not  decide  it.  That  passage  is  the 
speech  of  Christ  to  the  Samaritan  woman  at  the  well  of 
Sychar : — 

**The  woman  saith  unto  Him,  Sir,  I  perceive  that  Thou  art  a 
prophet.  Our  fathers  worshipped  in  this  mountain  ;  and  ye  say,  that 
la  Jerusalem  is  the  place  where  men  ought  to  worship.  Jesus  saith 
unto  her,  Woman,  believe  me,  the  hour  cometh,  when  ye  shall  neither 
in  this  mountain,  nor  yet  at  Jerusalem,  worship  the  Father.  Ye 
wor^p  ye  know  not  what :  we  know  what  we  worship  :  for  salvation 
b  of  the  Jews.  But  the  hour  cometh,  and  now  is,  when  the  true 
worshippers  shall  worship  the  Father  in  spirit  and  in  truth :  for  the 
Father  seeketh  such  to  worship  Him.  God  is  a  Spirit :  and  they 
that  worship  Him  mast  worship  Him  in  spirit  and  in  truth." — St. 
fohn  iv.  19-24. 

The  only  interpretation  of  this  passage  which  will  fairly 
stand  is  that  it  points  to  the  decentralisation  and  delocalisa- 
tion  of  worship  under  the  Gospel,  in  direct  contrast  to  the 
usage  under  the  Law.  And,  as  a  fact,  such  decentralisation 
has  actually  taken  place.  It  is  one  of  the  chief  boasts  of 
the  Roman  Church  that  no  minute  of  any  day  from  year 
to  year  passes  during  which  the  highest  rite  of  Christian 


54  THE    PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    I. 

worship  is  not  being  actually  celebrated,  in  one  part  or 
other  of  the  world,  by  her  priests;  and  a  popular  litho- 
graphic print,  to  be  procured  in  Parisian  shops  for  objets  de 
religiojt,  is  the  "  Dial  of  the  Eucharist,"  showing  at  what 
place  Mass  is  being  said  as  each  hour  comes  round  at  the 
meridian  of  Paris,  whether  it  be  Edinburgh,  Vienna, 
Moscow,  Damascus,  Calcutta,  Pekin,  Melbourne,  San 
Francisco,  Buenos  Ayres,  or  Capetown. 

Hence,  the  chief  motive  for  the  peculiar  regard  paid  to 
Jerusalem  no  longer  exists,  for  the  political  accident  of  its 
being  the  capital  of  the  Davidic  line  of  kings  had  nothing 
to  do  with  its  religious  sacredness  as  the  one  place  of  law- 
ful sacrifice.  To  retain  another  city  in  a  similar  position, 
when  all  monopoly  of  this  peculiar  kind  has  been 
abolished  for  nearly  two  thousand  years,  would  have  no 
adequate  motive  whatever. 

{b)  Next,  what  does  the  letter  of  the  New  Testament  tell 
us  about  Rome  ?  Is  there  anything  which  foretells  its 
coming  dignity,  or  its  relation  to  St.  Peter  ?  No  syllable 
in  the  Old  Testament  supplies  so  much  as  a  hint  on  the 
subject.  While  there  are  many  prophecies  implying  that  a 
Gentile  7iation  will  succeed  to,  or  partake  the  privileges  of, 
Israel^  there  is  none  to  suggest  that  any  Gentile  city  should 
ever  supplant  Jerusalem.  Rome  is  named  exactly  nine 
times  in  the  New  Testament,  as  under : — 

1.  "  Strangers  of  Rome,  Jews  and  proselytes  "  (included  amongst 
the  concourse  at  St.  Peter's  sermon  on  the  day  of  Pentecost). — Acts 
ii.  lO. 

2.  "  Claudius  had  commanded  all  Jews  to  depart  from  Rome." — 
Acts  xviii.  2,  3. 

3.  "After  these  things  were  ended,  Paul  purposed  in  the  spirit, 
•when  he  had  passed  through  Macedonia  and  Achaia,  to  go  to  Jeru- 
salem, saying,  After  I  have  been  there,  I  must  also  see  Rome." — 
Acts  xix.  21. 

4.  "  And  the  night  following  the  Lord  stood  by  him,  and  said.  Be 
of  good  cheer,  Paul :  for  as  thou  hast  testified  of  Me  in  Jerusalem,  so 
must  thou  bear  witness  also  at  Rome." — Acts  xxiii.  ii. 

5.  "  We  came  the  next  day  to  Puteoli  :  where  we  found  brethren, 
and  were  desired  to  tarry  with  them  seven  days  :  and  so  we  went 
towards  Rome." — Acts  xxviii.  13,  14. 


CHAP.    I.]  LEGAL    EVIDENCE   OF    SCRIPTURE.  55 

6.  "And  when  we  came  to  Rome,  the  centurion  delivered  the 
prisoners  to  the  captain  of  the  guard  :  but  Paul  was  suftered  to  dwell 
by  himself  with  a  soldier  that  kept  him." — Acts  xxviii.  i6. 

7.  **To  all  that  be  in  Rome,  beloved  of  God,  called  to  be  saints  : 
Grace  to  you  and  peace  from  God  our  Father,  and  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ."— Rom.  i.  7. 

8.  "I  am  debtor  both  to  the  Greeks  and  to  the  Barbarians  ;  both 
to  the  wise  and  to  the  unwise.  So,  as  much  as  in  me  is,  I  am 
ready  to  preach  the  gospel  to  you  that  are  at  Rome  also." — Rom.  i. 

14,  15- 

9.  "  The  Lord  give  mercy  unto  the  house  of  Onesiphorus  ;  for  he 
oft  refreshed  me,  and  was  not  ashamed  of  my  chain  :  but,  when  he 
was  in  Rome,  he  sought  me  out  very  diligently,  and  found  me." — 
2  Tim.  i.  16,  17. 

Now  seven  of  these  nine  passages  are  exclusively  con- 
cerned with  some  relation  of  St.  Paul,  not  St.  Peter,  to 
Rome;  and  next,  of  the  other  two,  one  is  merely  intended 
to  explain  the  presence  of  Aquila  and  Priscilla  in  Corinth, 
instead  of  their  being  at  home  in  It^ly ;  while  the  remain- 
ing one  alone,  itself  the  first  cited,  has  any  connexion,  even 
indirectly,  with  St.  Peter,  and  then  no  more  than  is  equally 
shared  by  Cappadocia,  Pontus,  Egypt,  Libya,  and  the  rest 
of  the  catalogue  in  Acts  ii.  9-1 1.  Not  one  of  them  so 
much  as  hints  at  any  spiritual  pre-eminence,  actual  or  future, 
attaching  to  Rome. 

And  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  more  remarkable  con- 
trast than  this  brief,  meagre,  cold,  and  matter-of-fact  way 
in  which  the  imperial  mistress  of  the  world  is  thus  casually 
referred  to  in  Scripture  presents,  when  compared  with 
the  lavish  terms  of  admiration,  love,  and  reverence  with 
which  the  Prophets  greet  Jerusalem,  nay,  even  with  their 
recognition  of  the  material  splendour  and  might  of  Nineveh 
and  Babylon.  Not  only  do  the  Apostles  pass  its  secular 
marvels  over  in  utter  silence,  but  no  hint  of  its  future 
spiritual  glories  escapes  from  them. 

Is  there,  then,  anything  lacking?  Does  Jerusalem  alone 
of  the  great  Old  Testament  types  find  any  antitype  under 
the  Gospel  ?  Certainly  she  does  find  one,  only,  as  before, 
the  analogy  of  faith  holds  good,  and  the  type  is  eclipsed 
utterly  by  the  antitype,  belonging,  as  it  does,  to  the  higher 


56  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    I. 

spiritual  order.  Rome,  the  centre  and  strength  of  the 
carnal  world-power,  the  last  stronghold  of  classical  heathen- 
ism, when  even  in  the  days  of  St.  Leo  the  Great,  in  the 
very  middle  of  the  fifth  century,  professed  Christians  (the 
great  Pope  tells  us  in  his  seventh  Christmas  Sermon),  when 
actually  climbing  the  ascent  up  to  the  high  altar  of  St. 
Peter's  own  BasiHca,  used  to  turn  round  on  the  steps  and 
solemnly  bow  down  in  worship  to  the  Sun-God ;  Rome, 
the  last  powerful  enemy  of  the  Cross,  would,  if  put  in  the 
stead  of  Jerusalem,  have  been  in  one  sense  a  greater  declen- 
sion than  Peter  put  as  the  Rock  instead  of  God  ;  for  Peter 
was,  at  any  rate,  a  glorious  saint,  but  all  Rome's  spiritual 
memories  were  of  idolatry,  cruelty,  and  lust,  contrasting 
with  the  glory  of  Jerusalem  not  merely  in  the  far  distant 
past,  but  as  the  City  in  which  the  Great  King  manifested 
his  countenance,  fulfilled  his  work,  and  endowed  His 
Church  with  the  gifts  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 

No  such  degradation  from  the  loftier  ideal  is  to  be  found. 
*'  Here,"  says  the  Apostle,  '^  we  have  no  continuing  city, 
but  we  seek  one  to  come." — Heb.  xiii.  14.  And  what  that 
is,  let  him  tell  us  more  at  length  :  — 

•'  But  ye  are  come  unto  Mount  Sion,  and  unto  the  city  of  the  living 
God,  the  heavenly  Jerusalem,  and  to  an  innumerable  company  of 
angels,  to  the  general  assembly  and  church  of  the  firstborn,  which  are 
written  in  heaven,  and  to  God  the  Judge  of  all,  and  to  the  spirits  of 
just  men  made  perfect,  and  to  Jesus  the  mediator  of  the  new  covenant, 
and  to  the  blood  of  sprinkling,  that  speaketh  better  things  than  that  of 
Abel." — Heb.  xii.  22. 

It  is  this  "  Jerusalem  above  [which]  is  free,"  according 
to  St.  Paul,  "which  is  the  mother  of  us  all,"  Gal.  iv.  26  : 
the  only  "  mother  and  mistress  of  all  Churches  "  known  to 
him.  And  only  to  this  city  are  men  under  the  Gospel  to 
go  on  pilgrimage,  because — 

"Now  they  desire  a  better  country,  that  is,  an  heavenly:  wherefore 
God  is  not  ashamed  to  be  called  their  God  :  for  He  hath  prepared  for 
them  a  city." — Heb.  xi.  16. 

What  it  is  like  St.  John  tells  us  in  the  glowing  language  at 


CHAP.    I.]  LEGAL    EVIDENCE   OF    SCRIPTURE.  57 

the  close  of  the  Apocalypse,  wherein  the  jasper  walls, 
jewelled  foundations,  gates  of  pearl,  and  golden  streets  of 
the  Heavenly  City  are  depicted. 

Such  is  all  that  is  directly  obtainable  from  the  clear  letter 
of  Scripture. 

There  is  one  isolated  fragment  of  testimony  adducible, 
and  adduced,  on  the  Ultramontane  side,  namely,  this 
verse  of  the  first  Epistle  of  St.  Peter : — 

**  The  church  that  is  at  Babylon,  elected  together  with  you,  saluteth 
you;  and  so  doth  Marcus  my  son." — i  St.  Peter  v.   13, 

The  received  opinion  in  the  Roman  Church,  based  on 
very  early  tradition  (beginning  with  Eusebius,  and  from 
an  erroneous  interpretation  of  his  statement,  supposed  to 
be  ascribed  by  him  to  St.  Papias  and  St.  Clement  of 
Alexandria,  whom  he,  in  fact,  cites  only  as  attesting  the 
Petrine  origin  of  St.  Mark's  Gospel,  as  Valesius  has  pointed 
out  in  his  note  upon  the  passage),  and  also  on  arguments 
which  have  some  weight  and  cogency,  is  that  Babylon  here 
stands  for  Rome.  On  the  whole,  there  is  something  to  be 
said  for  this  view,  and  against  the  alternatives  of  the 
Mesopotamian  Babylon  and  of  Cairo,  which  have  been 
suggested  (and,  in  the  former  instance,  supported  by  very 
cogent  arguments)  by  eminent  scholars,  such  as  Archbishop 
de  Marca  and  Bishop  Pearson,^  though  at  best  there  is 
only  conjecture,  not  proof,  while  the  Sinaitic  MS.  supplies 
the  word  "church,"  formerly  supposed  to  be  missing  in  the 
Greek,  and  thus  refutes  the  theory  of  Calvin  that  St.  Peter 
is  speaking  in  this  verse,  not  of  the  Church,  but  of  his  wife, 
as  ''she  who  is  elect  at  Babylon."  But  the  passage,  never- 
theless, cannot  be  pleaded  in  evidence  of  privilege,  because 
(i)  it  is  unquestionably  obscure  and  ambiguous,  not  clear 
and  manifest;  because  (2)  it  does  not  specify  any  official 

'  These  are  (i)  the  absence  of  symbolical  language  elsewhere  in  this 
Epistle  ;  (2)  the  large  Jewish  population  then  at  Babylon  (Joseph. 
**  Antiq.,"  xv.  3  ;  xvii.  2  ;  xviii.  i),  while  the  Jews  had  been  driven 
out  of  Rome  by  Claudius,  so  (3)  that  St.  Peter,  as  Apostle  of  the 
Circumcision,  woulil  more  naturally  go  elsewhither. 


58  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    I. 

connexion  between  St.  Peter  and  the  Church  at  Babylon, 
wherever  that  may  have  been ;  and  because  (3)  even  if 
these  two  facts  were  otherwise,  the  adjective  "elect 
together,"  avveKXeKrt'i,  Vulg.  coelecta^  denotes  absolute 
equality  of  spiritual  condition  with  those  other  Churches 
of  "Pontus,  Galatia,  Cappadocia,  Asia,  and  Bithynia,'* 
enumerated  in  the  opening  words  of  this  Epistle  as  those 
to  which  it  is  addressed.  And  lastly  (4),  it  is  the  evil  case 
of  Babylon  that,  whether  in  the  Old  Testament  or  the 
New,  there  is  not  one  word  ever  spoken  in  its  favour. 
Egypt  and  Assyria,  often  condemned,  have,  at  any  rate, 
some  sets-off  to  show,  as  Isaiah  xix.  18-24;  Ps.  Ixviii.  31 ; 
Micah  vii.  1 2  ;  but  for  Babylon,  from  Isaiah  to  Revelation, 
there  is  nothing  but  denunciations  of  judgment,  destruc- 
tion, and  woe  :  no  hint  of  so  much  as  a  remnant  to  be 
delivered  out  of  it,  save  of  such  as,  being  mere  exiles  and 
captives  there,  are  not  of  its  citizens  (Rev.  xviii.  4;  cf.  Ps. 
Ixxxvii.  4  ;  Isa.  xlviii.  20  ;  Jer.  li.  6,  45) ;  no  promise  of  a 
spiritual  growth  to  spring  up  when  the  earthly  one  is  cut 
down.  And  therefore,  if  the  types  of  the  Old  and  New 
Testament  are  to  count  for  anything  in  the  evidence,  this 
identification  of  Babylon  and  Rome  is  fatal  to  any  claim 
of  privilege  urged  on  behalf  of  the  latter  on  the  ground  of 
Divine  favour  and  revelation. 

The  last  item  of  the  evidence  is  that,  in  the  closing  book 
of  the  Sacred  Canon,  there  is  total  silence  as  to  any  central 
court  of  appeal  for  the  Seven  Churches,  any  supreme 
visible  authority  to  which  each  Angel  is  subject.  The 
visitation,  so  to  speak,  of  each  Church  is  made  directly  by 
Christ  Himself,  and  not  by  any  Vicar  of  His  upon  earth  ; 
and  even  the  Apostle  St.  John  acts  as  merely  communi- 
cating a  message,  not  as  personally  enforcing  it. 

No  case,  therefore,  can  be  estabhshed  from  the  Holy 
Scriptures,  regarded  in  the  legal  point  of  view  as  a  single 
document  proffered  in  evidence  of  the  Petrine  privilege, 
and  as  the  chief  item  of  that  evidence,  since  being  the 
most  authoritative  and  indisputable  form  of  Divine  revela- 
tion; and  therefore  unless  it  can  be  conclusively  shown 


CHAP.    I.]         I-EGAL   EVIDENCE   OF    SCRIPTURE.  $9 

that  i\i\s>  prima  facie  failure  to  prove  the  claim  thereby  is 
fully  repaired  by  evidence  of  equivalent  weight,  as  marked 
in  its  broader  outlines,  and  as  cumulative  in  its  minor 
indications,  as  that  which  has  been  marshalled  above,  it 
remains  that  Christ  as  the  Rock,  and  the  Heavenly  Jeru- 
salem as  the  Mother  of  all  the  Churches,  are  alone  set 
forth  and  recognised  in  these  capacities  by  the  inspired 
writers  of  the  New  Testament.  And  that  because  the  one 
possible  plea  in  bar  of  judgment  which  might  be  adduced 
under  other  circumstances,  that  of  Development,  is  inappli- 
cable here,  first,  because  a  "  charter  of  privilege  "  cannot 
be  developed  at  all,  but  must  have  been  clearly  granted 
from  the  first  in  explicit  terms,  unlike  a  mere  right  of  pre- 
scription, which  may  grow  through  user  in  course  of  time ; 
and  next,  because  in  this  particular  instance  the  comparison 
of  the  evidence  shows  that  there  is  nothing  to  develope. 

So  far,  then,  as  the  Papal  claim  is  alleged  to  be  of  Divine 
privilege,  given  by  revelation,  the  Scriptures,  treated  as  the 
chief  document  in  evidence  of  claim,  fail  to  satisfy  the 
requirements  of  Roman  Canon  Law;  for  (i)  they  afford 
no  testimony  whatever  as  to  the  annexation  of  privilege  to 
the  Roman  See,  or  its  transmission  from  St.  Peter  to  any 
of  his  successors;  (2)  the  evidence  as  to  his  own  primacy 
is  obscurely  and  enigmatically  worded ;  (3)  so  far  as  its 
wording  does  go,  it  is  a  personal,  not  an  official  grant,  and 
thus  dies  with  the  original  grantee ;  (4)  if  continued  in  the 
Ultramontane  sense,  it  encroaches  on  St.  Paul's  privileges, 
which  are  more  clearly  worded. 

Wherever  the  proof  may  be  found,  therefore,  it  is  certainly 
not  in  the  Scriptures. 


60  THE    PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    II. 


CHAPTER  II. 

LEGAL   EVIDENCE   OF    LITURGIES    AND    FATHERS. 

Although  the  investigation  of  the  letter  of  Scripture 
yields  such  extremely  slender  results  in  favour  of  the  privi- 
lege of  St.  Peter,  yet  it  may  be,  and  in  fact  is,  argued  that 
there  is  such  a  body  of  other  incontestable  evidence  on  its 
behalf  in  existence,  proving  its  recognition  and  acceptance 
from  the  very  first,  as  to  amount  to  proof  of  Divine  revela- 
tion ;  on  the  principle  that  the  universal  prevalence  of  a 
certain  interpretation  of  Scripture  at  the  hands  of  the  body 
which  is  the  custodian  and  witness  of  Scripture^  and  of  an 
unbroken  practice  based  on  that  interpretation,  is  as  truly 
proof  of  its  being  a  revealed  part  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ 
as  any  statement  found  in  the  express  words  of  Scripture 
itself.  Exactly  so,  there  are  certain  statutes  in  the  English 
law  whose  wording  is  far  from  being  clear  to  the  lay  mind, 
and  whose  clauses  seem  to  go  but  a  very  small  way  towards 
covering  the  whole  subject-matter  concerned,  but  where  a 
perfectly  consistent  series  of  decisions  in  the  law-courts, 
dating  from  the  original  enactment,  and  an  unbroken  usage 
in  entire  harmony  therewith,  serve  as  proof  to  every  one 
that  these  Acts  have  in  fact  one  unquestioned  meaning, 
itself  as  much  part  of  the  law  of  the  land  as  if  verbally 
embodied  in  their  wording. 

Examples  of  the  kind  referred  to  may  be  found  in 
ecclesiastical  matters  also.  The  observance  of  Sunday,  the 
baptism  of  infants,  the  institution  of  episcopacy,  do  not  rest 
on  clear  and  express  warrant  of  the  letter  of  Scripture. 
They  are  instances  of  an  universal  identity  of  interpretation 
of  that  letter,  resulting  in  an  universal  identity  of  practice 
all  over  the  Christian  world  from  its  earliest  times. 

And  to  all  who  accept  the  Church  as  being  a  divinely 


CHAP.  II.]     LEGAL    EVIDENCE   OF    LITURGIES,    ETC.  6 1 

established  and  guided  body,  such  evidence  is  sufficient ; 
while  even  those  who  regard  it  merely  as  a  human  organiza- 
tion, are  constrained  to  admit  that  whatever  exhibits  such 
complete  unison  and  such  an  unbroken  prescription,  must 
fairly  represent  the  mind  of  the  first  Christian  teachers, 
and  be  clothed  with  whatever  authority  they  possessed. 

If,  then,  any  such  harmonious  testimony  to  the  Privilege 
of  Peter  be  producible  as  that  which  can  be  found  for 
Sunday  observance,  for  infant  baptism,  and  for  episcopacy, 
with  a  like  absence  of  rebutting  evidence,  it  will,  to  say 
the  least,  very  nearly  counterbalance  the  adverse  construc- 
tion which  a  comparative  survey  of  the  bare  letter  of  Scripture 
forces  on  the  theologian's  attention. 

"  Very  nearly,"  but  not  quite.  And  only  "  very  nearly," 
for  these  reasons  :  (i.)  The  claim  in  this  individual  instance 
is  a  special  privilege  by  a  deed,  so  to  say,  of  particular  grant 
or  donation,  to  which  impugners  are  referred  as  the  para- 
mount evidence  and  authority.  The  claim  on  behalf  of 
Sunday  observance,  or  of  infant  baptism,  does  not  rest  on 
any  such  definite  warrant  at  all,  but  on  unbroken  prescrip- 
tioTi  (that  is,  long  use  and  custom).  Now,  it  is  a  maxim 
of  Canon  Law  that  privilege  and  prescription  cannot  be 
simultaneously  pleaded  on  behalf  of  the  same  claim ; 
for  the  man  who  bases  his  demand  on  a  deed  of  privi- 
lege is  held  to  renounce  his  right  of  prescription — 
{Decret.  Greg.  IX.,  lib.  ii.  titt.  xxvi.  and  xxvii.  19). 
(2.)  That  which  expresses  the  mind  of  the  Church  only, 
and  is  not  directly  matter  of  Divine  revelation,  may  be  con- 
ceivably altered  by  the  consent  of  the  whole  body,  as  if, 
suppose,  the  distinction  between  Metropolitans  and  Bishops 
were  abolished.  But  it  is  not  competent  for  even  the  whole 
body  to  alter,  either  by  enlargement  or  diminution,  what- 
ever it  acknowledges  to  be  divinely  revealed,  as  is  the  case 
with  the  books  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament. 

The  most,  therefore,  which  could  be  derived  from  such 
a  consensus  of  authorities,  each  indefinitely  inferior  in 
weight  to  any  New  Testament  writer,  and  all  collectively 
not  nearly  equalling  the   aggregate  witness  of  the  New 


62  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  II. 

Testament,  would  be  a  very  strong  presumption,  but  still 
far  short  of  Divine  certainty,  in  favour  of  a  particular 
opinion  or  usage ;  unless  this  consensus  went  the  whole 
length  of  asserting  that  the  matter  alleged  is  a  divinely 
revealed  dogma  of  Christianity.  And  this  is  the  least 
which  would  make  amends  for  the  indirectness  and  ob- 
scurity, to  say  no  more,  of  the  evidence  for  the  Privilege 
of  Peter  as  found  in  the  Scriptures. 

Before  beginning  the  investigation  of  such  evidence  as  is 
tendered  or  producible,  it  is  expedient  to  set  down  once 
more  the  links  which  must  be,  one  and  all  of  them,  conclu- 
sively established  before  the  claim  will  bear  the  weight  of 
Papal  supremacy  or  infallibility,  and  also  to  state  the  sources 
of  inquiry,  and  the  classification  of  testimony. 

First,  then,  it  must  be  shown  that  there  is  full  agreement 
amongst  the  Fathers,  that  St.  Peter  was  the  Rock  of  the 
Church,  was  infallible,  and  was  invested  with  direct  juris- 
diction over  all  the  other  Apostles,  and  not  with  a  mere 
primacy  of  honour. 

Next,  that  this  supreme  jurisdiction  and  infallible  charac- 
ter w^ere  not  personal  only,  but  capable  of  being  devolved 
and  transmitted  to  his  successors. 

Thirdly,  that  St.  Peter  was  local  and  diocesan  Bishop  of 
Rome. 

Fourthly,  that  as  a  matter  of  fact  he  did  professedly  and 
expressly  transmit  his  privilege  to  the  Bishops  of  Rome, 
constituting  them  his  heirs  and  successors. 

Fifthly,  that  the  Christian  Church  did,  in  fact,  from  the 
earliest  times,  recognise  and  submit  to  this  infallible  supre- 
macy as  of  Divine  institution. 

There  are  several  collateral  issues,  scarcely  less  import- 
ant, but  it  will  suffice  to  examine  these  five  links,  the 
failure  of  any  one  of  which  is  fatal  to  the  w^hole  claim. 

As  to  the  sources  of  inquiry,  they  are  :  (i.)  The  ancient 
Liturgies.  (2.)  The  writings  of  the  Fathers  from  St. 
Ignatius  and  other  sub- Apostolic  authors  down  to  Venerable 
Bede,  a.d.  735.  (3.)  The  canons,  decrees,  and  acts  of 
Councils,  and,  mainly,  the  six  undisputed  General  Councils. 


CHAP.    II.]      LEGAL   EVIDENCE   OF    LITURGIES,   ETC.  6^ 

(4.)  The  admissions  and  acts  of  Popes  and  others.  (5.)  All 
such  events  in  Church  history  as  illustrate  the  meaning  of 
phrases  used  by  the  Fathers. 

As  to  the  classification  of  testimony,  nothing  that  does 
not  help  to  prove  some  one  of  the  five  links  just  named  is 
relevant.  For  example,  no  quotations  which  are  simply 
laudatory  of  St.  Peter,  but  which  go  no  further  than  ranking 
him  foremost  of  the  Apostles,  and  none  which  speak  of  the 
Roman  Church  as  an  Apostolic  See,  but  do  not  attribute  to 
it  a  preponderating  authority  in  Christendom,  are  to  the 
point.  They  may  be,  and  constantly  are,  adduced  as 
though  they  helped  to  prove  the  privilege  of  Peter  ;  but  in 
fact  they  do  nothing  of  the  sort.  Foremost  amongst  such 
irrelevant  citations  are  those  which  speak  of  St.  Peter  as 
*'  Prince  of  the  Apostles."  The  modern  use  of  the  word 
*'  Prince,"  to  denote  superior  and  even  sovereign  rank, 
naturally  misleads  those  who  do  not  know  that  the  Latin 
pj-inceps^  from  which  it  is  derived,  has  no  such  necessary 
meaning,  but  originally  denoted  no  more  than  "  first  in  time 
or  order."  And  in  this  sense,  just  as  St.  Peter  is  called 
"  Prince  of  the  Apostles,"  as  indeed  St.  Andrew  is  also  by 
St.  Jerome  on  Psalm  Ixviii.,  so  is  St.  Stephen  called  "  Prince 
of  the  Martyrs,"  without  any  superior  authority  being  there- 
by attributed  to  him  over  them.  The  mistake  generated  in 
this  way  may  be  compared  to  that  which  would  be  caused 
if  some  person,  noticing  in  a  Peerage  that  the  Duke  of 
Norfolk  is  *'  Premier  "  Duke  and  Earl  of  England,  were  not 
merely  to  suppose  that  he  is  the  holder  of  the  first  Dukedom 
and  Earldom  ever  created  in  England,  but  that  he  and  the 
Dukes  his  predecessors  have  always  been  the  heads  of  the 
Executive,  as  Prime  Ministers  of  the  Crown,  because  such 
is  a  modern  use  of  the  word  "Premier." 

Once  more. — It  must  be  steadily  borne  in  mind  that  no 
quotation  which  merely  goes  to  show  that  St.  Peter  stands 
forth  conspicuously  as  the  representative  of  the  unity  and 
authority  of  the  Church,  and  as  for  a  time  its  most  ])romi- 
nent  member,  is  of  the  least  value  either  in  behalf  of  the 
alleged  privilege.     What  is  needed  is  proof  that  St,  Peter 


64  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    II. 

represents,  not  the  Church,  but  Christ ;  that  he  is,  in  short, 
in  his  double  relation  to  the  Head  and  to  the  Body,  not 
what  (to  borrow  a  parallel  from  civil  society)  the  President 
of  a  Legislative  Chamber  is,  but  what  a  Regent  under  an 
absolute  monarchy  is,  in  the  absence  of  the  King. 

Again,  no  testimony  of  a  writer  who  uses  inconsistent 
and  incompatible  language  on  the  points  in  debate  can 
be  received  in  favour  of  the  claim,  unless  his  affirmative 
words  be  later  than,  and  in  formal  retractation  of,  his  nega- 
tive ones. 

Fourthly,  no  Pope  can  be  accepted  as  evidence  in  his 
own  favour,  because  of  the  universal  maxim  of  law,  "  No 
man  may  be  judge  in  his  own  cause."  But  admissions 
made  by  Popes  adverse  to  their  own  alleged  privilege  are 
good  proof  against  it ;  just  as,  in  a  common  question  of 
ownership,  say  of  a  purse  picked  up  in  the  street,  a  dis- 
claimer of  right  in  it  carries  conviction  of  the  speaker's 
truth  much  more  perfectly  than  an  assertion  of  ownership 
would  do,  because,  in  the  former  case,  the  statement  is 
against  the  interest  of  the  person  who  makes  it. 

Fifthly,  words  must  be  invariably  brought  to  the  test  of 
deeds.  It  is  a  common  device  of  Protestant  controver- 
sialists, for  example,  to  dilute  and  minimise  the  strong 
language  of  certain  Fathers  on  the  Holy  Eucharist  by 
describing  it  as  merely  rhetorical  metaphor,  not  to  be  lite- 
rally construed.  But  when  this  language  is  brought  to  the 
test  of  the  ancient  Liturgies,  which,  both  in  their  words 
and  acts,  denote  the  practical  belief  of  the  Churches  which 
used  them,  it  is  at  once  found  that  the  Fathers  are  actually 
less  fervid  and,  so  to  say,  "  extreme,"  than  the  Liturgies  in 
their  diction.  It  will  be  shown  later  what  light  the  acts 
of  Tertullian,  of  St.  Cyprian,  of  St.  Augustine,  and  other 
eminent  Christian  writers,  shed  on  their  language  with 
regard  to  the  Petrine  claims. 

The  importance  of  the  Liturgies  as  sources  of  evidence 
is  due  not  only  to  their  great  antiquity,  but  still  more  to 
the  fact  that  they  testify  to  a  great  deal  more  than  any 
patristic   citations  can  do,  for  what  whole  Churches  and 


CHAP.    II.]     LEGAL   EVIDENCE   OF    LITURGIES,    ETC.  65 

nations  said  officially  and  authoritatively  every  day  for 
several  centuries  together  is  much  weightier  than  what  a 
single  ecclesiastical  writer  said  but  once,  and  that  perhaps 
informally,  and  almost  certainly  in  his  private  capacity, 
pledging  no  one  but  himself.  The  nearly  universal  custom 
in  these  Liturgies  of  commemorating  the  most  eminent 
Saints  by  name  in  the  oblation  is  important  to  bear  in 
mind,  as  it  must  certainly  have  led  to  the  specific  mention 
of  St.  Peter  in  most,  if  not  all  of  them,  if  his  rank  be  as 
alleged  by  U  tramontanes. 

It  will  not  be  necessary  to  cite  all  the  extant  Liturgies, 
for  a  comparatively  small  number  of  extracts  will  display 
the  whole  evidence  : — 

a.  Liturgy  of  St.  James,  or  norm  of  Palestine. — In  the 
course  of  the  Prayer  of  Invocation  of  the  Holy  Ghost  on 
the  oblations  occur  these  two  highly  significant  passages  : — 
(i.)  "For  the  stablishing  of  thy  Holy  Catholic  Church, 
which  T/iou  hast  founded  on  the  rock  of  the  faith,  that  the 
gates  of  hell  may  not  prevail  against  it."  (2.)  "Especially 
for  the  glorious  Zion,  the  Mother  of  all  the  Churches.  ^^ 

b.  Liturgy  of  St.  Mark,  or  norm  of  Egypt. — There  are 
three  items  of  evidence  in  this  document: — (i.)  The  first 
place  in  the  commemoration  of  ecclesiastical  persons  is 
assigned  to  the  Pope  or  Patriarch  of  Alexandria,  who  is 
described  in  one  passage  as  "  pre-ordained  to  rule  over  Thy 
Holy  Catholic  and  Apostolic  Church."  (2.)  The  only 
Saints  commemorated  by  name  are  the  Blessed  Virgin  and 
St.  Mark,  as  founder  of  the  See  of  Alexandria.  (3.)  The 
order  of  commemoration  of  places  gives  the  first  rank  to 
Jerusalem,  the  second,  perhaps  to  Rome,  but  as  probably 
to  Constantinople  at  a  later  time,  and  the  third  to  Alex- 
andria, thus  : — "  Remember,  O  Lord,  the  Holy  city  of  our 
God,  Jesus  Christ,  atid  the  imperial  city,  and  this  city  of 
ours." 

c.  Liturgy  of  the  Holy  Apostles,  or  Nestorian  norm  of 
Persia. — No  evidence. 

d.  Liturgy  of  St.  Clement. — One  clause  alone  in  this 
ancient  document — and  that  most  probably  an  interpola- 

F 


(i6  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.     II. 

tion  by  the  anonymous  compiler  of  the  Apostohcal  Con- 
stitutions some  time  in  the  fourth  century — is  relevant,  and 
it  puts  the  Bishop  of  Jerusalem  first,  of  Rome  second,  and 
either  of  Antioch  or  Alexandria  third,  thus  :— ''  For  every 
episcopate  under  heaven  of  those  who  rightly  divide  the 
word  of  Thy  truth,  let  us  make  our  supplication  ;  and  for 
our  Bishop  James  and  his  parishes,  let  us  make  our  sup- 
plication ;  for  our  Bishop  Clement  and  his  parishes  let  us 
make  our  supplication ;  for  our  Bishop  Evodius  [al. 
Anianus]  and  his  parishes,  let  us  make  our  supplication." 

e.  Liturgy  of  St.  Basil  the  Great,  or  norm  of  Syro- 
Greek  Church. — No  evidence,  save  that  the  Blessed  Virgin 
and  St.  John  Baptist  are  the  only  saints  commemorated  by 
name,  and  that  the  local  prelate  is  the  first  named  in  the 
Great  Intercession. 

/  Liturgy  of  St.  Chrysostom,  or  norm  of  Constanti- 
nople.— As  St.  Basil. 

g.  Coptic  St.  Basil,  or  norm  of  the  Coptic  Church. — (i.) 
In  the  Prayer  of  Absolution  the  Tw^elve  Apostles  are  men- 
tioned collectively,  and  next  St.  Mark  is  named  specifically, 
followed  by  some  other  names.  (2.)  The  Pope  of  Alex- 
andria occupies  the  first  place  in  the  Intercession.  (3.) 
There  is  a  prayer  in  honour  of  St.  Paul  after  the  Epistle, 
as  being  the  chief  preacher  of  the  Gospel.  (4.)  In  a 
copious  commemoration  of  Saints,  the  only  New  Testament 
names  are  St,  Mary,  St.  John  Baptist,  St.  Stephen,  and  St. 
Mark.  (5.)  In  the  Prayer  of  Absolution  to  the  Father, 
the  text  St.  Matt.  xvi.  18,  19,  is  embodied  thus  : — ".  .  .  . 
Thou  art  He  Who  sayest  to  Peter  our  father,  by  the  mouth 
of  Thine  only  begotten  Son  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  '  Thou 
art  Peter  ....  loosed  in  heaven ' ;  so  then,  O  Lord,  let 
my  father  and  brethren  be  absolved  out  of  my  mouth,  by 
Thy  Holy  Spirit,  O  merciful  lover  of  men." 

The   ground   of  the  citation   htie,  therefore,  is  not  to 

allege  any  special  privilege  of  Peter,  but  to  base  on  the 

grant  of  the  power  of  binding  and  loosing  to  the  whole 

Church  in  his  person  the  right  of  the  individual  celebrant 

0  pronounce  absolution. 


CHAP.    II. J     LEGAL    EVIDENCE   OF    LITURGIES,    ETC.  67 

h.  Ordo  Communis,  or  norm  of  Syro-Jacobites. — (i.) 
There  is  an  exclamation  after  the  Epistle,  "  Glory  to  the 
Lord  of  Paul,  of  the  Prophets,  and  of  the  Apostles."  (2.) 
The  Four  Evangelists  are  commemorated  by  name  after  the 
Gospel  has  been  read.  No  mention  of  St.  Peter  occurs. 
A  variant  of  this  rite  has  a  Canticle  in  which  are  the 
words :  "  Blessed  be  Christ,  who  built  His  Church  upon 
Simon,"  but  this  seems  to  be  a  Maronite  copy,  altered 
under  Latin  influence. 

/.  Syriac  St.  James. — "Remember,  O  Lord,  the  holy 
Bishops  ....  who  from  James,  first  of  Bishops,  Apostle 
and  Martyr,  unto  this  day  have  preached  the  word,"  &c. 

j.  Syriac  St  Peter  the  Apostle,  L  and  IL — The  former 
of  these  commemorates  only  St  Mary,  St  John  Baptist, 
and  St  Stephen  by  name ;  the  latter  St.  Mary  alone. 
They  contain  no  other  evidence. 

k.  Armenian  Liturgy. — St  Mary,  St  John  Baptist,  St. 
Stephen,  and  the  Apostles  Thaddeus  and  Bartholomew,  are 
the  only  New  Testament  Saints  enumerated. 

/.  Liturgy  of  Malabar,  or  norm  of  Christians  of  St. 
Thomas. — The  only  Apostle  commemorated  by  name  is 
St  Thomas. 

m.  Liturgy  of  Nestorius. — No  evidence. 

n.  Ambrosian  Missal. — No  relevant  evidence,  even  in 
the  oftice  of  SS.  Peter  and  Paul,  but  there  is  one  phrase 
in  the  Oratio  super  sindone??i  for  St.  Peter's  Chair  at  ROme, 
worded  thus : — "  O  God,  Who  didst  this  day  hallow  the 
Pontificate  of  Thy  blessed  Apostle  Peter,  grant  that  Thy 
Church,  spread  throughout  the  world,  may  be  always  ruled 
by  his  governance  [ejus  magisterio  gubernari\  from  whom 
it  derived  the  beginning  of  religion."  But  this  is  an  in- 
terpolation in  the  sixteenth  century,  being  absent  from 
the  Ambrosian  Missal  in  1475,  though  it  is  found  in  one 
of  1522.  It  is  thus  far  too  late  to  have  any  evidential 
value. 

0.  Mozarabic  Missal,  or  norm  of  Spanish  Church  (tam- 
pered with  by  Cardinal  Ximenes  in  1500). — (i.)  St  Peter, 
"  Prince    of  the   Apostles,"   is    specially    named,    along 

F    2 


68  THE   PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [cHAP.    II. 

with  St.  Mary,  in  a  prayer  for  absolution  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  office.  (2.)  The  Pope  of  Rome  is  alone 
specified  by  name  as  joining  in  the  act  of  oblation 
which  all  the  clergy  are  said  to  offer.  (3.)  St.  Peter  is 
named  in  the  commemoration  of  Saints  at  the  head  of  the 
Apostles  and  Evangelists,  but  after  St.  Mary,  St.  Zacharias, 
St.  John  [Baptist],  and  Holy  Innocents.  (4.)  The  Collect 
for  St.  Peter's  Chair  begins  :— "  O  God,  Son  of  God,  Who 
didst  exalt  Peter  upon  Thyself,  the  most  solid  Rock,  and 
upon  Peter  the  Church,"  &c. 

/.  Galilean  Missal. — This  office  does,  indeed,  in  a  collect 
speak  of  St.  Peter  as  "  fundator  Ecclesiae  "  ("  founder  ot 
the  Church  "),  and  in  the  Collect  for  St.  Peter's  Chair  as 
"caput  ecclesiae"  ("head  of  the  Church");  but  in  the 
Contestatio  of  that  day  are  the  crucial  v/ords  : — "  In  cujus 
confessione  est  fundamentum  ecclesiae ;  nee  adversus  banc 
petram  portae  inferi  praevalent "  ("  In  whose  confession  is 
the  Church's  foundation,  nor  shall  the  gates  of  hell  prevail 
against  this  rock  ").  Mabillon  cannot  decide  whether  the 
feast  is  that  of  St.  Peter's  Chair  at  Rome  or  at  Antioch 
{De  Liturg.  Gallic).  If  the  latter,  it  does  not  help  the 
Roman  claim.  The  point  is  really  settled  by  the  fact  that 
Durandus  knows  of  the  Chair  at  Antioch  only. — Rat.  Div. 
Off.  vii.  8. 

q.  The  Old  German  Missal,  which,  however,  cannot  be 
older  than  the  middle  of  the  eighth  century,  and  probably 
bears  the  marks  of  the  strong  Roman  zeal  of  St.  Boniface, 
is  the  only  one  which  contains  testimony  directly  favour- 
able to  the  Petrine  claims.  In  the  Preface  for  St.  Peter's 
Chair  (itself  probably  a  later  interpolation)  we  read: — 
"  From  amongst  which  [Saints]  Thou  didst  make  ruler 
and  keeper  \_prcesulem  et  custoden{\  of  Thy  heavenly  en- 
closures Blessed  Peter,  called  to  the  Apostolate  by  the 
mouth  of  our  Lord  and  God,  Thy  Word  Himself,  and 
appointed  Prince  of  the  Apostles  because  of  his  con- 
fession of  Christ,  Thine  only  begotten  Son,  and  placed, 
with  a  change  of  name,  in  the  foundation  of  Thine  house, 
the  right  being  divinely  conferred   on  him  that  what  he 


CHAP.  II.]      LEGAL   EVIDENCE   OF   LITURGIES,    ETC.  69 

decreed  on  earth  shall  be  made  good  in  heaven."  This 
case  is  specially  useful  as  serving  to  show  what  kind  of 
evidence  we  are  entitled  to  require  from  the  ancient  Litur- 
gies, but  do  not  find  there. 

r.  Roman  Missal. — The  evidence  of  this  document, 
which  is  very  important  against  the  privilege,  will  be  set 
down  a  little  later  under  another  heading,  for  a  reason  there 
assigned.^ 

The  liturgical  evidence  is  thus  shown  to  be  either  posi- 
tively against  the  Petrine  claims,  or  negatively  incapable  of 
being  cited  in  their  favour,  although  it  is  quite  certain  that, 
if  any  such  view  of  St  Peter's  peculiar  rank  as  Head  of  the 
Church  and  Vicar  of  Christ  had  prevailed  as  unquestion- 
ably did  prevail  touching  St.  John  Baptist's  exceptional  posi- 
tion as  herald  and  forerunner  of  Christ,  we  should  find 
abundant  and  conclusive  proof  of  it  in  the  Liturgies. 

Before  entering  on  the  second  stage  of  inquiry — that 
which  is  concerned  with  the  writings  of  the  Fathers — it  is 
expedient  to  say  a  few  words  about  the  authority  they  in- 
dividually possess.  No  person  can  be  formally  enrolled 
amongst  the  Saints  by  canonization,  unless  after  the  strictest 
inquiry  it  be  established  that  nothing  which  he  wrote,  even 
if  unpublished,  contained  any  doctrinal  error  whatever  ;  or 
else,  supposing  him  to  have  written  aught  which  contra- 
dicted the^known  teaching  of  the  Church  in  his  day,  evidence 
of  retractation  must  be  adduced — (Decref.  Urbani  VIIT.  ; 
Bened.  XIV.  De  Serv.  Dei  Beatificai.  ii.  26,  2).  Never- 
theless, this  does  not  make  the  teaching  of  any  Saint  unim- 
peachable, if  valid   grounds   of  objection   can   be  stated 

'  But  it  may  be  said  here  that  the  festival  of  St.  Peter's  Chair  at 
Rome  does  not  occur  in  the  Roman  Missal  and  Breviary  till  inserted  in 
virtue  of  a  Bull  of  Paul  IV.  in  1538,  wherein  the  Pope  states  that  it 
had  become  entirely  obsolete  everywhere  except  in  Gaul  and  Spain. 
The  feast  of  St.  Peter's  Chair  is  mentioned  in  Canon  xxii.  of  the 
Second  Council  of  Tours  in  567,  but  without  any  specified  locality, 
and  all  the  earlier  mentions  of  place  have  Antioch,  not  Rome.  The 
latter  has  been  substituted  for  the  former  in  the  Gregorian  Sacramen- 
tary,  where  the  Codex  Rutoldi  has  Antiochia. 


70  THE    PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.   II. 

against  it,  but  only  makes  its  tenability  probable — {Bened. 
XI F.  De  SerzK  Dei  Beatificatio7ie^  ii.  32,  12).  But  if  the 
Saint  be  also  a  Doctor  of  the  Church,  then  his  doctrine 
may  not  be  impugned  at  all,  because  he  has  not  merely 
taught  in  the  Church,  but  has  taught  the  Church  itself — 
{Bened.  XIV.  De  Canonizaiione^  iv.  2  ;  xi.  11).  And, 
accordingly,  the  great  majority  of  the  subjoined  citations 
are  taken  from  Doctors  of  the  Church,  whose  authority  is 
not  open  to  criticism  from  Roman  Catholics.  Authors 
who  are  not  counted  amongst  the  Saints,  and  especially 
such  as  are  charged  with  heresy,  may  be  quoted  to  prove 
an  historical  fact,  but  not  to  establish  doctrine.  And 
nothing  short  of  the  unanimous  consent  of  the  Fathers  may 
lawfully  be  followed  by  any  Roman  Catholic  in  the  inter- 
pretation of  Scripture — {Creed  of  Pius  IV.,  par.  3). 

This  does  not  mean,  obviously,  that  the  silence  of  even 
a  considerable  number  of  Fathers  on  any  point  is  conclu- 
sive against  it,  but  only  that  all  such  as  do  treat  of  it  must 
be  substantially  agreed  in  their  view,  and  neither  contradict 
one  another  nor  oppose  the  opinion  sought  to  be  main- 
tained by  their  testimony.  Of  course,  silence  is  sometimes 
very  weighty  adverse  evidence,  when  the  scope  and  circum- 
stances of  any  patristic  or  conciliar  document  seem  to  call 
for  express  mention  of  the  point  in  discussion,  and  yet  no 
such  mention  is  found.  But  it  is  the  peculiarity  of  the 
Petrine  privilege  that  its  importance  as  a  central  dogma  of 
Christianity  (which  it  must  be,  if  the  relation  of  every 
human  soul  to  God  depend  on  its  relation  to  the  Roman 
See)  is  so  great,  that  it  could  no  more  be  left  out  of  sight 
by  any  appreciable  number  of  Christian  writers  than  the 
Incarnation  or  the  Atonement ;  and,  consequently,  silence 
is  in  this  case  a  very  serious  contradiction. 

It  will  be  convenient,  as  matter  of  arrangement,  to  restrict 
the  inquiry  at  first  to  the  opinions  expressed  by  the  Fathers 
upon  the  three  capital  texts  of  Scripture  which  are  used  as 
the  basis  of  the  Petrine  privilege  ;  namely,  St.  Matt.  xvi.  18  ; 
St.  Luke  xxii.  32  ;  and  St.  John  xxi.  15-17. 

What,  then,  do  the  Fathers  say  as  to  the  Rock  of  the 


CHAP.  II.]      LEGAL    EVIDENCE    OF    LITURGIES,    ETC.  7 1 

Church,  the  prayer  for  Peter's  steadfastness,  and  the  com- 
mission to  feed  the  sheep  ? 

There  is  a  scantiness  of  reference  to  these  topics  in  the 
whole  ante-Nicene  period  which  is  simply  unaccountable  on 
any  hypothesis  of  their  vital  or  central  importance.  Out  of 
the  following  authors  and  books — Ignatius,  Clement,  Poly- 
carp,  Hernias,  Papias,  Justin  Martyr,  Athenagoras,  Tatian, 
Theophilus,  Clementine  Recognitions  and  Homilies,  Apos- 
tolical Constitutions,  Irenaeus,  Hippolytus,  Caius,  Asterius, 
Alexander  of  Jerusalem,  Clement  of*  Alexandria,  Origen, 
Tertullian,  Methodius,  Lactantius,  Peter  of  Alexandria, 
Alexander  of  Alexandria,  Cyprian,  Firmilian,  Gregory 
Thaumaturgus,  Dionysius  of  Alexandria,  and  Archelaus — 
only  six  make  any  reference  at  all  to  St.  Matthew  xvi.  18. 
One  of  these,  St.  Hippolytus,  in  his  Discourse  on  the  Holy 
Theophany,  is  speaking  of  the  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and 
says,  "  By  this  Spirit  Peter  spake  that  blessed  word,  '  Thou 
art  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the  living  God.'  By  this  Spirit 
the  Rock  of  the  Church  is  established."  No  conclusion  can 
be  drawn  either  way  from  this  citation. 

St.  'Cyprian,  Doctor  of  the  Church,  in  the  first  place 
where  he  quotes  the  text,  Ep.  xxvii.,  begins  by  saying  that  it 
serves  to  explain  "  the  honour  of  a  Bishop  and  the  Order 
of  the  Church,  ....  so  that  the  Church  is  founded  on 
the  Bishops."  In  the  second  citation  of  it,  in  his  treatise 
on  the  Unity  of  the  Church,  he  glosses  it  (and  St.  John 
xxi.  15,  cited  in  the  same  sentence)  by  saying:  "The 
Lord  ....  that  He  might  set  forth  unity,  He  arranged 
by  His  authority  the  origin  of  that  unity,  as  beginning 
from  one.  Assuredly  the  rest  of  the  Apostles  were  also  the 
same  as  was  Peter^  endowed  with  a  like  partnership  both 
of  honour  a?td  p07ver ;  but  the  beginning  proceeds  from 
unity." 

St.  Firmilian  actually  quotes  the  text  to  prove  that  Pope 
St.  Stephen  was  in  error,  folly,  and  blindness  by  permitting 
heretical  baptisms  to  be  counted  valid,  and  was  thereby 
introducing  many  other  rocks  and  Churches  instead  of  one 
only,  at  the  very  time  that  he  was  boasting  of  his  succession 


72  THE    TETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.   II. 

from  Peter,  on  whom  the  foundations  of  the  Church  were 
laid. — Ep.  Ixxv.  in  0pp.  St.  Cypriafit. 

The  three  remaining  witnesses  are  the  Clementine  Homi- 
lies, Origen,  and  Tertullian.  But  the  first  of  these  is 
rejected  by  the  Roman  Church,  ever  since  the  Synod  under 
Pope  Gelasius  in  494,  as  spurious  and  heretical,  and  there- 
fore its  testimony  (chap,  xix.)  that  St.  Peter  describes  him- 
self as  "a  firm  rock,  the  foundation  of  the  Church,"  cannot 
be  adduced. 

Nor  is  anything  lost  to  the  Ultramontane  cause  by  re- 
fusing to  admit  this  apocryphal  testimony,  since,  even  though 
St.  Peter  is  the  hero  of  its  romantic  narrative,  St.  James  is 
described  throughout  as  the  chief  bishop  and  arbiter  of 
Christian  doctrine,  exercising  authority  over  St.  Peter  him- 
self,— a  fact  in  itself  inconsistent  with  the  universal  pre- 
valence of  the  opposite  view  at  the  date  of  the  book, 

Origen  says  that  "  the  Rock  is  every  disciple  of  Christ, 
from  whom  they  drank  who  drank  of  the  spiritual  rock 
which  followed  them,  and  on  every  such  rock  every  eccle- 
siastical word  is  builded,  and  the  plan  of  life  according  to 
His  pattern  ....  But  if  thou  thinkest  that  the  whole 
Church  is  built  by  God  on  St.  Peter  alone,  what  dost  thou 
say  of  John,  the  son  of  thunder,  and  every  one  of  the 
Apostles  }  Or  shall  we  dare  to  say  that  the  gates  of  hell 
were  not  to  prevail  against  Peter  in  particular,  but  that  they 
were  to  prevail  against  the  other  Apostles  and  perfect  ones  ? 
Is  it  not  true  for  each  and  all,  what  was  said  before,  that 
'  the  gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail  against  it,'  and  also  that 
other  saying,  '  Upon  this  rock  I  will  build  my  Church  ? '  " 
And  he  goes  on  to  say  that  all  who  make  St.  Peter's  con- 
fession of  Christ  their  Rock,  become  the  same  as  Peter. — 
Conim.  in  St.  Matt.  xvi.  18. 

Tertullian  alone  remains,  and  his  two  citations  of  St. 
Matt.  xvi.  18  are  in  treatises  written  after  he  fell,  as  is 
alleged,  into  Montanist  heresy.  In  the  former  of  these, 
De  Prcescript.  Haret.  xxii.,  he  confines  himself  to  saying, 
"  Peter,  who  is  called  the  Rock  on  which  the  Church  should 
be  built "  ;  but  in  the  latter,  De  Pudicitia^  xxi.,  he  insists 


CHAP.  II.J      LEGAL    EVIDENCE   OF    LITURGIES,    ETC.  73 

Strongly,  and  at  length,  that  the  privilege  of  Peter  died  with 
him,  and  was  incapable  of  transmission,  so  that  he  was  the 
Rock  only  in  the  sense  of  founding  the  Church  by  being 
its  first  preacher,  and  that  the  power  of  binding  and  loosing, 
conferred  on  Peter  alone  perso?ially,  could  not  be  derived 
to,  nor  exercised  by,  any  Church  claiming  to  be  akin  to 
Peter  ;  while  that  even  as  regards  Peter  himself,  his  power 
of  binding  and  loosing  referred  merely  to  his  action  in  first 
unlocking  the  doors  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  by  adminis- 
tering baptism  to  the  new  converts,  in  abolishing  part  and 
retaining  part  of  the  Mosaic  Law,  and  in  his  miracles  upon 
the  lame  man  and  upon  Ananias.  And  in  two  other  places, 
Adv.  Jitd.  ix.  and  Adv.  Marcion.  iv.  13,  Tertullian  restricts 
the  title  of  Rock  to  Christ. 

That  is  the  whole  which  the  ante-Nicene  Church  has  to 
tell  us  on  St.  Matt.  xvi.  18. 

As  to  St.  Luke  xxii.  31,  only  four  ante-Nicene  writers 
cite  it.  Of  these,  two,  St.  Ignatius,  in  the  Epistle  to  the 
Sniymceans,  and  the  Apostolical  Constitutions,  vi.  5.  iv., 
actually  refer  to  it  as  if  worded  in  the  plural  throughout 
and  referring  to  all  the  Apostles,  and  not  to  St.  Peter 
singly,  albeit  the  original  text  is  in  the  singular.  Tertullian 
(De  Fuga)  uses  the  text  merely  to  show  that  the  Devil's 
power  is  limited,  so  that  he  cannot  tempt  Christians  further 
than  he  is  expressly  permitted.  St.  Cyprian  quotes  it  twice 
(Episi.  vii.  5,  and  De  Oral.  Domini  30),  in  each  case  em- 
ploying it  in  proof  of  Christ's  intercessory  office  for  all 
sinners,  and  making  no  special  application  of  it  to  St. 
Peter. 

St.  John  xxi.  15  is  but  twice  cited,  once  by  St.  Cyprian 
in  the  passage  of  the  treatise  on  Unity  already  quoted 
above,  where  he  alleges  the  commission  of  feeding  the  sheep 
to  extend  to  every  Apostle  alike  ;  and  it  occurs  again  in  a 
very  obscurely-worded  sentence  in  a  letter  from  the  clergy 
of  Rome  to  those  of  Carthage,  on  St.  Cyprian's  withdrawal 
during  a  persecution.  After  quoting  our  Lord's  words 
about  himself  as  the  Good  Shepherd,  in  contrast  to  the 
hireling  that  leaveth  the  sheep  to  the  wolf  and  fleeth,  they 


74  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.   II. 

go  on  :  "To  Simon,  too,  He  speaks  thus  :  '  Lovest  thou 
me  ?  He  answered,  I  do  love  Thee.  He  saith  to  him. 
Feed  My  sheep.'  We  know  that  these  words  came  to  pass 
by  reason  of  the  very  act  whereby  he  [Peter]  withdrew,  and 
the  other  disciples  did  the  like." — Ep.  ii.  in  0pp.  St.  Cypr. 
The  simplest  interpretation  of  this  difficult  passage  is  that 
the  Roman  clergy  read  the  text  in  the  light  of  a  rebuke  to 
St.  Peter  for  fleeing  and  denying  his  Master,  and  as  a  warn- 
ing not  to  neglect  his  pastoral  duties  another  time. 

This  is  absolutely  the  whole  which  the  Fathers  of  the 
three  first  centuries  have  to  tell  us  as  to  the  three  clauses 
of  the  Petrine  grant  of  privilege,  and  apart  from  the  omin- 
ous silence  of  the  great  majority,  the  words  of  those  who  do 
speak  are  of  curiously  Httle  help  to  the  claim.  There  is,  of 
course,  a  good  deal  of  other  evidence  in  the  writers  of  this 
early  period  yet  to  be  considered,  but  as  interpreters  of  the 
letter  of  Scripture,  they  have  no  more  to  give  us  on  this 
special  topic. 

If  the  inquiry  be  carried  down  somewhat  lower,  still 
confining  it  strictly  to  the  interpretation  of  these  three 
texts,  the  case  for  the  claim  of  privilege  will  not  be 
strengthened  : — 

St.  Matt.  xvi.  i8. 

St.  Hilary  of  Poitiers,  Doctor  of  the  Church. — "  Upon  this 
rock  of  the  confession  is  the  building  up  of  the  Church  ....  This 
faith  is  the  foundation  of  the  Church.  Through  this  faith  the  gates  of 
hell  are  powerless  against  it.  This  faith  hath  the  keys  of  the  heavenly 
kingdom." — De  Tri7iit.  vi.  36,  37. 

St.  Epiphanius,  Doctor  of  the  Church.— "  Peter,  the  foremost  of 
the  Apostles,  who  became  to  us  a  truly  solid  rock,  laying  the  founda- 
tion of  the  faith  of  the  Lord,  on  which  [faith]  the  Church  is  in  all 
respects  built.  And  that  first  because  he  confessed  Christ,  the  Son 
of  the  living  God,  and  heard  that  *  Upon  this  rock  of  unshaken  faith 
I  will  build  My  Church.'" — Adv.  Hcer.  lib.  ii.  torn.  i.  8. 

"He  also  reveals  the  Holy  Spirit  (Acts  v.  3),  for  this  befitted  the 
first  of  the  Apostles,  the  strong  rock  on  which  the  Church  of  God  is 
built,  and  the  gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail  against  it." — Ancor.  ix. 

St.  Basil,  Doctor  of  the  Church. — "The  Church  of  God,  whose 
foundations  are  ujjon  the  holy  hills  ;  for  it  is  built  upon  the  foundation 
of  the  Apostles  and  Prophets.     One  of  these  mountains  was  Peter,  on 


CHAP.  II.]     LEGAL   EVIDENCE   OF    LITURGIES,    ETC.  75 

which  rock  the  Lord  promised  that  He  would  build  His  Church.  For 
sublime  and  lofty  minds,  lifted  high  above  earthly  things,  are  fitly 
styled  mountains.  But  the  lofty  mind  of  blessed  Peter  is  named  a 
lofty  rock,  because  it  was  deeply  rooted  in  the  faith  and  abode  firmly 
and  unshrinkingly  the  blows  inflicted  by  temptation.  All  those  who 
acquire  knowledge  of  the  Godhead,  through  greatness  of  mind,  and 
of  actions  proceeding  from  mind,  perfected  in  sound  life,  they  are  the 

tops  of  the  mountains  upon  which  the  house  of  God  is  built 

It  may  be  that  he  is  speaking  of  an  escape  from  the  evils  he  specified 
above  ;  to  wit,  entering  into  the  hole  of  the  rock  (Isa.  ii.  19),  that 
is,  the  steadfastness  of  faith  in  Christ.     That   is   where  Moses  was 

placed  when  about  to  see  God But  collate  whatever  is  said  in 

Scripture  concerning  the  Rock,  that  the  passage  may  be  cleared  up 
for  thee." — Conim.  in  Esaiavi,  ii.  66,  85. 

St.  Gregory  Nazianzf.n,  Doctor  of  the  Church. — "Do  you 
notice  how,  when  all  Christ's  disciples  were  lofty  and  worthy  of  elec- 
tion, one  is  called  a  Rock,  and  is  intrusted  with  the  foundations  of  the 
Church  {koi  Toig  OifxiXioig  rr/c  iKKXijaiag  irKTTfvtTai),  while  another 
is  better  loved,  and  rests  on  the  bosom  of  Jesus,  and  the  remaining 
disciples  admit  their  superior  honour?" — Oraf.  xxvi. 

St.  Amijrose,  Doctor  of  the  Church  :— 

*'  Prseco  diei  jam  sonat — 
Noctis  profundae  pervigil, 


Hoc  ipsa  Petra  ecclesioe 
Canente  culpam  diluit." 

Hymn,  Sterne  Rerum  Conditor. 

('*  Lo,  even  the  very  Church's  Rock 
Melts  at  the  crowing  of  the  cock.") 

"This  is  that  Peter  to  whom  Christ  said,  'Thou  art  Peter,  and 
upon  this  rock  I  will  build  my  Church.'  Therefore  where  Peter  is, 
there  is  the  Church  ;  where  the  Church  is,  there  is  no  death,  but  life 
eternal;  And  therefore  He  adds  :  '  The  gates  of  hell  shall  not  pre- 
vail against  it ;  and  I  will  give  unto  thee  the  keys  of  the  kingdom  of 
heaven.*  That  blessed  Peter,  against  whom  the  gates  of  hell  pre- 
vailed not,  did  not  close  the  gates  of  heaven  against  himself ;  but,  on 
the  contrary,  destroyed  the  entrances  of  hell,  and  made  manifest  the 
entrances  of  heaven.  Being,  therefore,  placed  on  earth,  he  opened 
heaven  and  closed  hell." — In  Psalm  xl.  Enarr.  30. 

"This,  then,  is  Peter,  who  answered  for  the  other  Apostles,  yea, 
before  the  others,  and  therefore  is  called  the  foundation,  because  he 
not  only  knew  how  to  preserve  that  which  belonged  to  himself,  but 
that  which  was  common  to  others.  Christ  expressed  his  assent  to 
him,  the  Father  made  revelation  lo  him.     For  whoso  speaketh  truly 


76  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  II. 

of  generation  from  the  Father  got  it  from  the  Father,  and  not  from 
the  flesh.  Faith  is  therefore  the  foundation  of  the  Church  ;  for  it  was 
not  said  of  Peter's  person  \_lit.  flesh],  but  of  his  faith,  that  the  gates 
of  hell  should  not  prevail  against  it,  but  his  confession  conquered 
hell. " — De  Incarn.  Doni.  33,  34. 

"The  rock  is  Christ.  '  P'or  they  drank  of  that  spiritual  rock 
which  followed  them,  and  that  rock  was  Christ.'  However,  He  did 
not  deny  the  favour  of  this  epithet  to  His  disciple,  that  he  should  be 
Peter,  because  he  had  steadfastness  of  constancy,  firmness  of  faith, 
from  the  rock.  Strive,  therefore,  that  thou,  too,  mayest  be  a  rock. 
Look,  therefore,  for  the  rock  not  outside  thyself,  but  within  thee. 
Thine  act  is  a  rock,  thy  thought  is  a  rock.  Thine  house  is  built  on 
this  rock  that  it  may  not  be  shaken  by  any  storms  of  spiritual  wicked- 
ness. Thy  faith  is  a  rock  :  faith  is  the  foundation  of  the  Church.  If 
thou  be  a  rock,  thou  shalt  be  in  the  Church,  because  the  Church  is  on 
the  rock.  If  thou  be  in  the  Church,  the  gates  of  hell  shall  not  pre- 
vail against  thee." — Expos,  in  Ltuam^  vi.  97,  98. 

"That  starry  sky  ....  is  the  high  firmament  of  heaven,  nor  is 
this  other  firmament  unlike  it,  of  which  it  is  said,  '  Upon  this  rock 
will  I  build  my  Church.'  ....  They  sucked  oil  out  of  the  firm  rock, 
for  the  rock  was  the  flesh  of  Christ,  which  redeemed  heaven  and  the 
whole  world." — Ep.  xliii.  9. 

St.  Jerome,  Doctor  of  the  Church. — "I  speak  with  the  successor 
of  the  Fisherman  and  a  disciple  of  the  Cross.  I,  following  no  chief 
save  Christ,  am  counted  in  communion  with  your  Blessedness,  that 
is,  with  the  Chair  of  Peter.  On  that  rock  1  know  the  Church  is 
built.  Whoso  eats  the  lamb  outside  this  house  is  profane." — Epist.  ad 
Damasum  Papam,  A.D.  376. 

"Christ  is  the  rock,  Who  granted  to  His  Apostles  that  they  should 
be  called  rocks  :  '  Thou  art  Peter,  and  upon  this  rock  I  will  build 
my  Church.'  " — Comm.  in  Amos,  vi.  12,  A.D.  392. 

"  But  thou  sayest  the  Church  is  founded  on  Peter,  albeit  the  very 
same  thing  is  also  done  upon  all  the  Apostles,  and  they  all  receive 
the  keys  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  and  the  strength  of  the  Church  is 
stablished  on  them  all  equally ;  nevertheless,  one  out  of  the  twelve 
is  chosen,  that  by  the  appointment  of  a  head,  the  chance  of  division 
might  be  averted.  .  .  .  ." — Adv.  Jovin.  ii.  A.D.  393. 

"  Was  there  any  other  province  in  the  whole  world  which  admitted 
the  preaching  of  pleasure,  into  which  the  wily  serpent  crept,  save  that 
which  the  teaching  of  Peter  had  founded  on  Christ  the  Rock  ?  " — 
Adv.  Jovin.  ii.  circa  finem,  A.D.  393. 

"  Upon  this  rock  the  Lord  founded  His  Church ;  from  this  rock 

the  Apostle  Peter  derived  his  name The  foundation  which  the 

Apostle,  as  architect,  laid  is  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  alone.  On  this 
foundation  the  Church  of  Christ  is  built." — Comm.  in  Matt.  vii.  24, 
25,  A.D.  398. 

"As  He  gave  light  to  the  Apostles,  that  they  might  be  called  the 


CHAP.    II.]     LEGAL   EVIDENCE   OF    LITURGIES,    ETC.  77 

light  of  the  world,  and  they  obtained  other  titles  from  the  Lord,  so 
also  to  Simon,  who  believed  in  Christ  the  Rock,  He  gave  the  name 
of  Peter,  and  according  to  the  metaphor  of  a  rock,  it  is  rightly  said, 
*I  will  build  my  Church  on  thee.'" — Comm.  in  Matt.  xvi.  18,  a.d. 
398. 

St.  John  Chrysostom,  Doctor  of  the  Church. — "  *  And  I  say 
unto  thee,  that  thou  art  Peter,  and  upon  this  rock  will  I  build  My 
Church,'  that  is,  upon  the  faith  of  his  confession  (ry  iriffrti  Trjg 
ofioXoyiag.") — Horn.  54  in  Matt.  xxvi.  sect.  2. 

St.  Isidore  of  Pelusium. — "Christ,  Who  searcheth  the  hearts, 
did  not  ask  His  disciples,  '  Whom  do  men  say  that  I,  the  Son  of 
Man,  am?'  because  He  did  not  know  the  varying  opinion  of  men 
concerning  Himself,  but  was  desirous  of  teaching  all  that  same  con- 
fession which  Peter,  inspired  by  Him,  laid  as  the  basis  and  foundation 
on  which  the  Lord  built  His  Church." — Epist.  235. 

"  Christ  is  the  Rock,  abiding  unshaken,  when  He  was  Incarnate." 
—Ep.  416. 

St.  Augustine,  Doctor  of  the  Church. — "At  the  same  time  while 
I  was  a  priest  (a.d.  392-395),  I  wrote  a  book  against  the  Letter  ot 
Donatus  ....  in  which  book  I  said  in  a  certain  place  of  the  Apostle 
Peter  that  the  Church  was  founded  on  him  as  on  a  rock,  an  interpre- 
tation which  is  also  sung  by  the  lips  of  many  in  the  verses  of  blessed 
Ambrose,  where  he  speaks  of  the  cock,  '  Lo,  even  the  very  Church's 
Rock  melts  at  the  crowing  of  the  cock.'  But  I  know  that  afterwards 
I  most  frequently  {si€pissime)  have  thus  explained  what  the  Lord 
said,  *  Thou  art  Peter,  and  upon  this  rock  I  will  build  My  Church,' 
that  it  should  be  understood  as  upon  Him  Whom  Peter  confessed, 
saying,  *  Thou  art  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the  living  God, '  and  that 
Peter,  named  from  this  Rock,  represented  the  person  of  the  Church, 
which  is  built  on  the  Rock,  and  received  the  keys  of  the  kingdom  of 
heaven.  For  it  was  not  said  to  him.  Thou  art  the  rock  {petra),  but 
thou  art  Peter.  For  Christ  was  the  Rock,  Whom  Simon  confessing, 
as  the  whole  Church  confesses  Him,  was  called  Peter." — Retract,  i. 
xxi.  A.D.  428. 

*'The  first  of  the  Apostles  ....  signified  the  Church  universal 
....  because  it  is  founded  upon  the  rock,  whence  Peter  received 
his  name.  For  the  rock  is  not  from  Peter,  but  Peter  from  the  rock, 
just  as  Christ  is  not  called  from  Christian,  but  Christian  from  Christ. 
Therefore  it  is  that  the  Lord  saith,  '  Upon  this  rock  will  I  build  My 
Church,' because  Peter  had  said,  'Thou  art  the  Christ,  the  Son  of 
the  living  God.'  Upon  this  rock,  this  rock  which  thou  hast  con- 
fessed, I  will  build  My  Church.  For  Christ  was  the  rock,  on  which 
foundation  Peter  himself  was  built.  F'or  other  foundation  can  no 
man  lay  than  that  is  laid,  which  is  Christ  Jesus.  Therefore  the 
Church,  which  is  founded  on  Christ,  received  from  Him  the  keys  of 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  in  Peter,  that  is,  the  power  of  binding  and 
loosing  sins. " —  Tract,  in  Evang.  Joann.  cxxiv.  5. 


78  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    II. 

St.  Cyril  of  Alexandria,  Doctor  of  the  Church. — "That 
which  He  named  a  rock,  referring  to  his  name,  was  nought  else,  I 
think,  than  the  unshaken  and  most  firm  faith  of  the  disciple,  on 
which  also  the  Church  of  Christ  was  founded  and  established." — 
Dialog,  de  Trinitate,  iv. 

Theodoret. — "  For  this  reason  Christ  our  Master  suffered  the 
first  of  the  Apostles,  whose  confession  he  laid  as  the  kind  of  basis  or 
foundation  of  the  Church,  to  be  shaken  and  to  err,  and  to  raise  him 
up  again,  teaching  two  things  by  the  one  act,  not  to  trust  themselves 
and  to  stablish  the  wavering." — Epist.  Ixxvii. 

St.  Leo  the  Great,  Pope  and  Doctor. — "  The  solidity  of  the 
foundation  on  which  the  lofty  building  of  the  whole  Church  is  erected, 
fails  not  by  reason  of  the  mass  of  the  temple  which  rests  upon  it. 
For  the  solidity  of  that  faith  which  was  praised  in  the  Prince  of  the 
Apostles  is  perpetual.     And  so,  as  that  abides,  which  Peter  believed 

in  Christ,  so  that  too  abides  which   Christ  instituted  in  Peter 

Therefore  the  appointment  of  the  Truth  abides,  and  blessed  Peter 
persevering  in  that  strength  of  the  rock  which  he  received,  hath  never 
quitted  the  governance  of  the  Church  which  he  received.  For  so  he 
was  ordained  before  the  others,  that  whilst  he  is  called  the  Rock, 
whilst  he  is  declared  the  foundation,  whilst  he  is  constituted  door- 
keeper of  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  and  arbiter  of  things  to  be  bound 
and  loosed  ....  we  should  know  by  the  mystery  of  these  titles  what 
is  his  fellowship  with  Christ  ....  That  confession  which,  inspired 
by  God  the  Father  in  the  Apostle's  heart,  rises  above  all  the  uncer- 
tainties of  human  opinions,  received  the  firmness  of  the  rock,  which 
cannot  be  shaken  by  any  impacts.  For, "  througliout  the  Church 
Universal  Peter  daily  saith,  '  Thou  Drt  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the 
living  God,'  and  every  tongue  which  confesses  the  Lord  is  imbued 
with  the  authority  of  this  voice.  This  faith  conquers  the  Devil,  and 
looses  the  bonds  of  his  captives.  This  delivers  men  from  the  world 
and  places  them  in  heaven,  and  the  gates  of  hell  cannot  prevail 
against  it.  For  it  has  been  divinely  established  with  such  firmness 
that  neither  heretical  pravity  was  ever  able  to  corrupt  it,  nor  pagan 
unbelief  to  overcome  it." — Serni.  ii.  on  Anniversary  of  his  Consecra- 
tion. 

St.  Gregory  the  Great,  Pope  and  Doctor.—"  The  Son  of  God 
is  the  Beginning.  In  this  beginning  the  earth  was  founded,  because 
the  Church  is  founded  on  Him.  Hence  the  Apostle  saith,  *  Other 
foundation  can  no  man  lay  than  that  is  laid,  Jesus  Christ.'  Hence  He 
Himself,  the  mediator  of  God  and  man,  saith  to  the  Prince  of  the 
Apostles.  '  Thou  art  Peter,  upon  this  Rock  I  will  build  My  Church.' 
For  He  is  the  Rock  from  which  Peter  derived  his  name,  and  on 
which  He  said  that  He  would  build  the  Church.' — Comm.  in  Ps.  ci. 
27. 

Venerable  Bede. — "  He  received  the  name  of  Peter  from  the 
Lord,  because  he  chose  faith  from  a  steadfast  mind  to  Him  of  Whom 


CHAP.    II.]     LEGAL    EVIDENXE    OF    LITURGIES,    ETC.  79 

it  is  written,  'And  that  Rock  was  Christ,'  and  '  Upon  the  Rock,'  that 
is,  upon  the  Lord  the  Saviour,  who  gave  to  Him,  knowing,  loving, 
and  confessing  Him  faithfully,  a  share  in  his  own  Name,  so  that  he 
should  be  called  Peter,  from  the  Rock  on  which  the  Church  is  built." 
Horn,  in  Alatt.  xvi.  18. 

St.  Gregory  VII.,  Pope,  sending  a  crown  to  Rudolf  of 
Rheinfelden,  to  stir  him  up  against  the  Emperor  Henry 
IV.,  added  the  following  line  : — 

"  Petra  dedit  Petro,  Petrus  diadema  Rodolpho," 
("  The  Rock  gave  the  diadem  to  Peter,  Peter  to  Rodolf"). 

Baronius,  Ann. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  carry  this  chain  of  evidence  down 
further,  though  it  could  be  largely  amplified  from  early  and 
later  writers.^  It  is  sufficient  to  say  that  only  two  of  the 
passages  just  cited  are  even  patient  of  the  Ultramontane 
interpretation,  namely,  the  first  citation  from  St.  Jerome, 
and  the  fuller  context  of  the  citation  from  St.  Leo  the 
Great,  which  makes  very  lofty  claims  indeed  for  the  Papacy. 
As  regards  St.  Jerome,  apart  from  a  very  old  debate  as  to 
what  he  meant  (seeing  that  the  whole  scope  of  the  letter  is 
an  appeal  to  the  Trinitarian  teaching  at  Rome  against  the 
prevalent  Arianism  of  the  East,  and  may,  therefore,  be  very 
reasonably  interpreted  of  comnmnion  in  faith  with  the 
orthodox  Pope  Damasus),  and  that  the  great  Erasmus 
glosses  the  passage  thus  : — 

'•  Not  on  Rome  [was  the  Church  built],  as  I  think,  for  it  might 
happen  that  Rome  also  should  become  degenerate,  but  upon  tliat 
faith  which  Peter  professed,  which  hitherto  the  Roman  Church  has 
preserved ; " 

there  is  the  weighty  fact  that,  even  if  we  interpret  the 
Epistle  to  Damasus  in  the  most  hyper-Papal  sense,   it   is 

*  E.g. — St.  Gregory  Nyssen,  St.  John  Damascene,  St.  Isidore  of 
Seville,  Popes  Hadrian  I.,  Nicolas  I.,  John  VHI,,  Stephen  V., 
Innocent  H.,  Hadrian  IV.,  Urban  III.,  &c.  See  citations  in  Fried- 
rich,  Doctimenta  ad  Illustrandum  Concilium  Vatiatnum.  And  for 
other  medieval  and  later  authors  of  note,  such  as  Albertus  Magnus, 
Cardinal  Hugo,  &c.,  who  do  not  identify  St.  Peter  with  the  Rock, 
see  Denton,  Commentary  on  the  Gospels^  St.  Peter's  Day. 


8o  Tlirc    I'KTKINK   CLAIMS.  [cHAP.    11. 

sixteen  years  earlier  than  the  oldest  of  the  five  other  con- 
tradictory passages  cited  from  St.  Jerome,  whose  maturer 
and  final  opinion  must  be  judged  by  them,  just  as  St. 
Augustine's  retractation  of  his  first  view  about  St.  Peter 
being  the  Rock,  settles  his  judgment  on  that  jKjinl.  And 
it  is  another  weighty  fact  that  St.  Leo,  when  making  very 
large  claims  indeed  for  the  "  privilege  of  Peter,"  and  f(;r 
himself  as  Peter's  heir,  is  obliged  to  contradict  himself 
by  admitting  that  the  Catholic  faith  is  the  Church's  foun- 
dation. 

There  is,  then,  not  merely  no  "  unanimous  consent"  of 
the  Fathers  in  favour  of  Peter  being  the  Rock^  but  there  is 
a  powerful  preponderance  of  adverse  testimony.  However, 
though  some,  although  but  few  (17  as  against  44,  and  8 
more  who  take  all  the  Apostles  to  be  the  Rock)  '  of  the 
Fathers  do  call  J^eter  the  Rock  of  the  Church*^;  never- 
theless, this  view  is  not  open,  even  as  a  mere  pious  opinion,  to 
any  Roman  Catholic.  'IVo  clauses  of  the  Creed  of  J'ius 
IV.  bar  it  effectually — namely,  the  second,  which  binds  to 
acceptance  oi  "  apostolic  and  ecclesiastical  traditions,  and 
all  other  observances  and  constitutions  of  the  same  (holy 
Roman)  Church,"  and  the  eleventh,  already  cited,  obliging 
to  the  definitions  of  the  Councils,  and  chiefly  that  of 
Trent. 

Now  the  Roman  Missal  is  a  formulary  of  the  highest 
authority  in  the  Latin  Church,  and  not  only  includes  many 
"apostolic  and  ecclesiastical  traditions,"  but  is  the  chief 
storehouse  of  •'  observances  "  in  worship. 

But  the  Collect  for  the  Vigil  of  SS.  Peter  and  Paul  runs 
thus:— 

"Grant,  wc  beseech  Thee,  Almighty  (iod,  that  Thou  wotihlst  not 
suffer  UH,  whom  Thou  hant  CHtabli»hc*l  ufion  the  rock  of  the  Apostolic 
confession,  to  be  shaken  by  any  dl»turbance»  j " 


'  Speech  of  Archbishop  Kcnrick  of  .St.  Louis  at  the  Vatican  Council. 
Friedrich,  Docummta.    Vol.  1,  p.  195. 

"^  None  of  those  who  do  »0,  however,  adfl  anything  to  connect  the 
text  with  the  Bishop  of  Komc  at  succcisor  or  heir  of  St.  Peter. 


iiiAP.    II.  I     I.ICQAL  BVIDXNCR  OP  UTUKQIBS,   ETC.  8l 

while  the  only  evidence  it  contains  capable  of  being  cited 
on  the  other  side  is  that  SS.  Peter  and  Paul  nro  named 
together  in  the  c:onfession,  but  after  St.  John  Haplist ; 
and  again  together  in  the  ('anon,  infm  mtiommy  at  the 
head  of  the  list  of  Apostles  and  Martyrs  there  eom- 
memorated. 

And  the  Council  of  Trent,  in  its  solemn  decree  upon 
the  Symbol  of  the  Faith,  speaks  thus,  after  a  long  preamble: 

♦'Wheiefore  it  [ihe  Couniil]  jmlged  that  the  symhtil  of  tht^  Faith, 
which  Ihe  lliily  Koumn  Chiiuh  iiMfh,  hhtmhl  W  w\  lotlh  in  thf  full 
wunhn^  wheicliy  it  iii  tvAil  iii  all  Chiuihcii,  ii^  tlmt  piiiiciple  iu  svhioh 
All  who  confess  the  faith  of  Christ  must  neeiU  Rjjree,  and  «».»  th^  Jirm 
ttHii  only  foumiiUioH^  n^i>itimf  whkh  tht  ),'iU((s  of  Ml  ihail  not  fnvnih 
which  is  of  llus  sort  \  *  I  bcliuvo  in  one  Gud,'  iitc,"^ 

Consequently,  any  Roman  Catholic  who  alleges  ihut  Si. 
Matt.  xvi.  IB  refers  to  St.  liter's  person,  subjects  himself 
to  anathema,  inasmuch  as  the  Missal  and  the  Council  of 
Trent  declare  that  the  Rock  is  the  faith  contained  in  the 
Nicene  Creed.  No  doubt  there  is  a  rival  anathema  in  the 
Vatican  decrees,  awaiting  those  who  hoUl  the  Tridentine 
view,  but  the  decisions  of  Trent  are  much  more  certainly 
valid  and  binding  in  the  Church  of  Rome  than  those  of 
the  Vatican,  whose  canonit  al  legality  is  open  to  llie  most 
serious  question,  and  whi(  h  merely  serve,  by  this  contradic- 
tion, as  a  useful  touchstone  for  Infallibility. 

St.  Lukic  xxii.  31,  3a. 

The  next  part  of  the  inquiry  is  the  interpretation  put  by 
the  Fathers  on  Christ's  address  to  St,  Peter  at  the  Last 
Supper,  and  whether  they  liike  it  as  a  grant  of  infallibility 
and  jtirisdit  tion.  There  is  much  less  evidence  of  any 
kind  prodiK  ible  as  to  this  text  than  for  the  preceding  one, 
from  the  curious  fa<  t,  fjimiliar  to  all  Hiblical  stmlents,  of 
the  comparative  paucity  of  ( omments  on  St.  Luke's  Cospel, 
However,  there  is  quite  enough  to  settle  the  question  : 

St,  llii.AHVOK  poniKKs,  Doctor.— "As  for  what  \\v.  swiil,  'If  it 
Im)  possible,' &c.  (St,  Matt,  x^vl,  31J),  He  taught  iis  iiicaalii^'  jilainly 
inwl-''  (•— ■—  t.,    I'tMfi  •    •  H-hi.hl,  Siiliin  li:ilh    .t.-ii.-'l    lu    Inv.-   vmi. 


82  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    II. 

that  he  may  sift  you  as  wheat,  but  I  have  prayed  for  thee,  that  thy 
faith  fail  not.'  For  they  all  had  to  be  tried  by  this  cup  of  the  Lord's 
Passion.  And  the  Father  is  besought  for  Peter,  lest  his  faith  should 
fail,  that  at  all  events  the  grief  of  repentance  might  not  be  wanting  to 
the  weakness  of  the  sinner,  for  in  case  he  did  repent,  then  this  faith 
would  not  fail  in  him." — De  Trin.  x.  38. 

St.  Basil  the  Great,  Doctor. — "  Thou  art  not  more  honourable 
than  blessed  Peter  the  Apostle.  For  thou  canst  not  excel  in  love  one 
who  loved  so  vehemently  as  to  be  willing  to  die  for  him.  But  because 
he  spoke  too  confidently,  when  he  said,  '  Though  all  should  be 
offended  in  Thee,  yet  will  I  never  be  offended,'  he  was  given  up  to 
human  cowardice,  and  fell  into  denial,  instructed  in  caution  by  his 
fall,  and  taught  to  spare  the  weak  by  learning  his  own  weakness  ;  and 
to  know  clearly  that  just  as  when  he  was  drowning  in  the  sea,  he  was 
rescued  by  Christ's  right  hand,  so  when  in  danger  of  perishing  in  the 
stormy  sea  of  offence  through  lack  of  faith,  he  was  preserved  by 
Christ's  power,  Who  had  moreover  foretold  him  what  would  happen, 
saying,  '  Simon,  Simon,'  &c.  And  Peter,  thus  rebuked,  was  fitly 
aided  and  taughi  to  lay  aside  his  vanity,  and  to  spare  the  weak." — 
Horn,  de  Humilitate. 

St.  Ambrose,  Doctor. — The  first  thing  to  be  remarked 
is  that  St.  Ambrose  passes  over  St.  Luke  xxii.  31,  32 
altogether  in  his  commentary  on  that  Gospel — a  fact  incon- 
sistent with  his  having  attached  the  importance  or  the 
meaning  to  it  which  it  assumes  when  adduced  as  one 
clause  of  the  Petrine  grant  of  privilege.  He  does  explain 
it,  however,  in  another  part  of  his  writings  : — 

"  Peter  is  winnowed,  that  he  may  be  forced  to  deny  Christ.  He 
falls  into  temptation,  he  speaks  some  things  full,  as  it  were,  of  chaft ; 
but  he  spake  in  word  that  he  might  be  better  stablished  in  affection. 
At  last  he  wept,  and  washed  away  his  chaff,  and  by  these  temptations 
he  obtained  Christ's  intercession  for  him.  ...  At  length  Peter  is  set 
over  the  Church  after  being  tempted  by  the  Devil.  And  so  the  Lord 
signifies  beforehand  that  which  came  to  pass  afterwards,  in  that  He 
chose  Him  to  be  shepherd  of  the  Lord's  flock.  For  he  said  to  him  : 
'When  thou  art  converted,  strengthen  thy  brethren.'  Therefore  the 
holy  Apostle  Peter  was  converted  into  good  corn,  and  was  winnowed 
as  wheat,  that  he  might  be  one  bread  unto  the  family  of  God  for  our 
food." — Conwi.  in  Ps.  xliii.  41, 

St.  John  Chrysostom,  Doctor.—"  Hear  what  He  saith,  '  I  have 
prayed  for  thee,  that  thy  faith  fail  not.'  For  this  He  said  sharply  re- 
proving him,  and  showing  that  his  fall  was  more  grievous  than  that 
of  the  rest,  and  needed  more  help.  .  .  .  And  why,  if  Satan  desired 
all,  did  He  not  say  concerning  all,  '  I  have  prayed  iox yoti  ?  '    Is  it  not 


CHAP.    II.]     LEGAL   EVIDENCE   OF    LITURGIES,    ETC.  83 

quite  plain  that  it  is  this,  which  I  have  mentioned  before,  that  it  is  as 
reproWng  him,  and  showing  that  his  fall  was  more  grievous  than  that 
of  the  rest,  that  He  directs  His  words  to  him?" — Horn.  82  in 
Matt.  xxvi. 

St.  Augustine,  Doctor. — "'And  take  not  the  word  of  truth 
utterly  out  of  my  mouth'  (Ps.  cxix.  43).  The  word  of  truth  was  not 
utterly  taken  out  of  Peter's  mouth,  in  whom  was  a  type  of  the  Church, 
for  though  he  denied  for  a  time  when  troubled  with  fear,  yet  he  was 
amended  by  weeping,  and  afterwards  crowned  by  confessing.  But 
when  he  says,  '  Take  not,'  it  is  to  be  understood,  '  Suffer  not  to  be 
taken;'  therefore  we  say  in  praying,  'Lead  us  not  into  temptatior.' 
And  the  L<jrd  Himself  to  Peter,  '  I  have  prayed  for  thee  that  thy 
faith  fail  not '  ;  that  is,  lest  the  word  of  truth  be  taken  out  of  thy 
mouth  utterly y — Horn.  xiii.  in  Ps.  cxviii. 

The  text  is  also  cited  several  times  in  relation  to  the 
Pelagian  heresy,  as  illustrating  the  necessity  of  grace  to 
assist  man's  free-will,  and  notably  by  St.  Jerome,  Doctor 
{Adv.  Feiag.)  St.  Augustine,  Doctor  {De  Grat.  tt  Lib.  Arb.  9), 
and  St.  Prosper  {De  Lib.  Arbit.  ad  Ruffi}i.  xi.),  but  they  all 
give  it  a  general  interpretation,  as  illustrating  a  doctrine 
affecting  every  man  alike,  so  that  in  absolute  strictness  their 
testimony  does  not  help  to  decide  the  question  either  way, 
save  so  far  as  their  silence  makes  against  the  Ultramontane 
gloss,  which,  in  truth,  cannot  be  traced  to  any  earlier 
writer  than  Pope  Pelagius  II.  in  his  First  Letter  in  586 
to  the  Bishops  of  Istria,  who,  in  their  reply,  denied  the 
truth  of  his  interpretation  and  of  the  inference  drawn  from 
it.  Pope  Agatho  revived  it  in  680,  and  it  reappears  in 
the  Summa  of  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  (Secunda  Secunda^  ,1-10) 
in  the  thirteenth  century.  Of  twenty  patristic  citations  made 
by  Bellarmine  in  its  favour,  all  are  quoted  as  from  Popes, 
and  eighteen  of  the  twenty  are  from  the  False  Decretals. 

St.  John  xxi.  15-17. 

St.  Gregory  Nazianzen,  Doctor. — "  Do  you  not  receive  repent- 
ant David,  whose  gift  of  prophecy  repentance  saved  ?  Nor  the  great 
Peter,  when  he  suffered  somewhat  from  human  weakness  in  the  matter 
of  the  Lord's  Passion  ?  But  Jesus  received  him,  and  by  the  threefold 
questioning  and  confession,  healed  the  threefold  denial." — Orat.  xxxix, 
for  Epiphany. 

G    2 


84  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    II. 

St.  Ambrose,  Doctor. — "It  was  said  to  him  thrice,  'Feed  My 
sheep,'  as  though  he  had  covered  his  sin  by  his  exceeding  love.  .  .  . 
Finally,  some  have  said  that  the  triple  question  as  to  his  love  was  put, 
because  the  denial  had  been  triple,  that  the  profession  of  love,  re- 
peated as  often,  might  blot  out  the  fall  of  the  triple  denial." — Apol. 
David,  i.  ix.  50. 

"Thus  the  threefold  answer  vouched  for  his  love,  or  else  blotted 
out  the  error  of  the  threefold  denial." — De  Obit.  Theodos.  19. 

St.  Epiphanius,  Doctor.—"  He  became  then  a  strong  rock  of  the 
building  and  a  foundation  of  the  house  of  God,  when  he  had  denied, 
and  had  turned  again,  and  was  found  by  the  Lord,  and  was  counted 
worthy  to  hear  '  Feed  My  sheep  '  and  'Feed  My  lambs,'  and  again 
•  Feed  My  sheep,'  for  Christ,  in  saying  this,  led  us  to  the  conversion 
of  repentance. " 

St.  Augustine,  Doctor. — "A  threefold  confession  is  rendered  for 
the  threefold  denial,  lest  the  tongue  should  serve  love  less  than  it  had 
served  fear,  and  lest  impending  death  should  seem  to  have  drawn  out 
more  words  than  present  life.  Let  it  be  the  duty  of  love  to  feed  the 
Lord's  flock,  as  it  had  been  the  token  of  fear  to  deny  the  Shepherd." 
—  Tract,  in  Evang.  Joann.  cxxiii.  5. 

"Fitly,  after  the  resurrection,  the  Lord  committed  His  sheep  to 
Peter  himself  to  be  fed.  Not  that  he  was  the  only  one  amongst  the 
disciples  who  attained  the  feeding  of  the  Lord's  sheep,  but  when 
Christ  speaks  to  one,  unity  is  recommended,  and  to  Peter  first, 
because  Peter  is  first  of  the  Apostles.  ...  Be  not  sad,  Apostle, 
answer  once,  answer  twice,  answer  thrice.  Let  confession  conquer 
thrice  in  love,  as  presumption  was  conquered  thrice  in  fear.  That 
must  be  thrice  loosed  which  thou  hadst  thrice  bound." — Sertn.  ccxcv. 
4,  in  Nat.  SS.  Petr.  et  Paul. 

"  Christ  saith  this  a  second  and  third  time,  that  love  might  thrice 
confess  what  fear  had  thrice  denied.  .  .  .  What  was  entrusted  to 
Peter,  what  was  enjoined  to  Peter,  not  Peter  only,  but  the  other 
Apostles  also,  heard,  held,  retained  ;  and  especially  the  Apostle  Paul, 
his  fellow  in  martyrdom  and  festival.  They  heard  these  things,  and 
handed  them  down  for  us  to  hear.  We  feed  you,  and  are  fed  together 
with  you.  .  .  .  Therefore  the  Lord  entrusted  his  sheep  to  us,  in  that 
He  entrusted  them  to  Peter.  .  .  .  The  Lord  commended  the  sheep 
to  us.  We  are  His  sheep.  We  are  His  sheep  along  with  you,  because 
we  are  Christians.  I  have  already  said  it,  we  feed  and  are  fed." — 
Serm.  ccxcvi.  3,  5,  17,  in  N'at.  SS.  Pet.  et  Paul. 

St.  Cyril  of  Alexandria,  Doctor.  — "  By  this  triple  confession 
of  blessed  Peter,  his  sin,  consisting  of  a  triple  denial,  was  done  away, 
and  by  the  words  of  our  Lord,  '  Feed  My  sheep,'  a  renewal,  as  it  were, 
of  the  apostleship  already  bestowed  on  him  is  understood  to  take 
place,  taking  away  the  shame  of  his  after  fall,  and  taking  from  him  the 
cowardice  of  human  frailty.  —  Coinm.  i?t  Evang.  Joann.  xxi. 

St.  Basil   the   Great,  Doctor.— "And  we  are  taught  this   by 


CHAP.  II.]      LEGAL    EVIDENCE   OF    LITURGIES,    ETC.  85 

Christ  Himself,  when  He  was  appointing  Peter  as  shepherd  of  the 
Church  after  Himself;  for  He  saith,  '  Peter,  lovest  thou  Me  more  than 
these  ?  Feed  My  sheep; '  giving  equal  authority  to  all  shepherds  and 
teachers  thenceforward.  And  the  proof  of  this  is  that  all  bind  and 
loose  exactly  as  he  did." — Const.  Monast.  xxii.  5. 

Venerable  Bede. — "That  which  was  said  to  Peter,  'Feed  My 
sheep,'  was,  in  truth,  said  to  them  all.  For  the  other  Apostles  were 
the  same  that  Peter  was  ;  but  the  first  place  is  given  to  Peter,  that  the 
tmity  of  the  Church  may  be  commended.  They  were  all  shepherds  ; 
but  the  flock  is  shown  to  be  one,  which  was  then  fed  by  all  the  Apostles 
with  one  mind,  and  since  that  time  is  fed  by  their  successors  with  a 
common  care." — Horn,  in  Vigil.  Petr.  et  Pauli. 

Two  facts  come  out  very  clearly  in  these  citations. 
First,  that  the  Fathers  regard  the  commission  of  feeding 
the  sheep  to  be  not  a  special  privilege  of  Peter,  but  given 
jointly  to  all  the  Apostles  ;  and  next,  that  what  is  peculiar 
to  Peter  here  in  their  mind,  is  that  he  was  the  only  Apostle 
amongst  the  eleven  who  had  forfeited  his  rank  and  autho- 
rity, and  that  w^e  have  in  this  place  his  restoration  to  the 
position  which  they  had  held  without  interruption.  And 
here,  consequently,  another  maxim  of  the  Canon  Law 
applies  exactly  : — 

**  The  renewal  of  a  privilege  confers  no  new  right,  nor  does  it  even 
confirm  an  old  one  [so  as  to  be  a  fresh  grant],  but  merely  main- 
tains whatever  held  good  at  first." — Decretal.  Greg,  IX,  lib.  ii.  tit. 

XXX.  4. 

Accordingly,  St.  Peter  is  merely  reinstated  in  whatever 
position  he  had  acquired  in  right  of  the  grant  in  St.  Matt, 
xvi.,  18,  19. 

It  remains  to  say  a  few  words  on  one  clause  of  this 
grant,  which  has  been  hitherto  passed  over  in  this  inquiry. 
The  assumption  made  up  to  this  point  is  that  the  words, 
"  I  will  give  unto  thee  the  keys  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven," 
are  fully  glossed  by  the  succeeding  words,  "  Whatsoever 
thou  shalt  bind  on  earth,"  &c.,  and  denote  the  same  power 
of  remitting  and  retaining  sins  which  all  the  other  Apostles 
received,  but  no  more.  And  this  is  the  general  opinion  of 
the  more  eminent  Fathers.  A  few  examples  will  suffice  in 
evidence  : — 


86  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    II. 

Origen. — "  What,  are  the  keys  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  given  by 
the  Lord  to  Peter  only  ?  And  shall  no  other  of  the  blessed  receive 
them  ?  But  if  this  promise,  '  I  will  give  thee  the  keys  of  the  kingdom 
of  heaven,'  be  common  to  others  also,  so  likewise  are  all  the  things 
that  are  recorded  before  and  after  this  as  spoken  to  Peter." — Comm. 
in  St.  Matt.  xvi. 

St.  Cyprian,  Doctor. — "Our  Lord,  Whose  precepts  and  com- 
mands we  are  bound  to  observe,  when  settling  the  honour  of  a  bishop 
and  the  constitution  of  His  Church,  speaketh  the  Gospel,  and  saith  to 
Peter,  '  And  I  say  unto  thee.  .  .  .  And  I  will  give  thee  the  keys  of 
the  kingdom  of  heaven,'  &c.  Thence,  through  the  changes  of  times 
and  successions,  the  ordination  of  bishops  and  the  constitution  of  the 
Church  is  carried  down,  so  that  the  Church  is  set  up  on  the  bishops, 
and  every  act  of  the  Church  is  controlled  by  these  same  superiors." — 
Epist.  xxvii. 

St,  Ambrose,  Doctor, — "Therefore  the  Lord  gave  the  Apostles 
that  which  previously  was  part  of  His  own  judicial  authority.  .  .  . 
Hear  Him  saying :  '  I  will  give  thee  the  keys  of  the  kingdom  of 
heaven,'  &c.  What  is  said  to  Peter  is  said  to  the  Apostles," — Cormn. 
in  Psalm  xxxviii.  37, 

St,  Hilary  of  Poitiers,  Doctor,— "Ye  holy  and  blessed  ones 
[Apostles],  who  through  the  merit  of  your  faith  received  the  keys  of 
the  kingdom  of  heaven,  and  obtained  the  right  of  binding  and  loosing 
in  heaven  and  in  earth." — De  Trinitate,  vi,  33, 

St.  Gaudentius  of  Brescia. — "AH  the  Apostles,  when  Christ 
rises,  receive  the  keys  in  Peter  ;  nay,  rather,  they  receive  the  keys  of 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  with  Peter,  when  he  saith  to  them,  'Receive 
the  Holy  Ghost,'  &c," — Serm.  xvi. 

St.  Augustine,  Doctor. — "The  Lord  Jesus,  as  you  know,  chose 
before  His  Passion  His  disciples,  whom  He  named  Apostles,  Amongst 
them  Peter,  almost  always  alone,  was  permitted  to  be  the  representa- 
tive person  of  the  whole  Church,  Because  of  that  personification  of 
the  whole  Church,  which  he  alone  supported,  it  was  his  to  hear,  '  I 
will  give  thee  the  keys  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven.'  It  was  not  one 
man  who  received  these,  but  the  Unity  of  the  Church  ....  when  it 
w^as  said  to  him,  'I  will  give  thee''  that  which  was  given  to  all." — 
Serm.  ccxcv.  2,  m  Nat.  SS.  Pet.  et  Patd. 

St.  Leo  the  Great,  Pope  and  Doctor. — "  Because  of  that  which 
is  said  to  most  blessed  Peter,  '  I  will  give  thee  the  keys,'  &c.,  the  right 
of  this  power  has  passed  to  all  the  other  Apostles  also,  and  the  ap- 
pointment of  this  decree  has  descended  to  all  the  princes  of  the 
Church  ;  but  it  is  not  without  reason  that  what  is  intimated  to  all  is 
intrusted  to  one.  For  it  is  assigned  to  Peter  singly,  because  the 
person  of  Peter  represents  all  rulers  of  the  Church." — Serm.  iii,  cap.  3. 

Nevertheless,  some  very  few  (as  St.  Cyril  of  Jerusalem) 
note  the  absence  of  this  particular  clause  from  the   two 


CHAP    II.]      LEGAL   EVIDENCE    OF    LITURGIES,    ETC.  87 

cognate  grants  made  to  the  Apostles  collectively  (St.  Matt, 
xviii.  18  ;  St.  John  xx.  23),  and  urge  that  some  special  dis- 
tinction must  be  intended,  some  peculiar  privilege,  belong- 
ing to  St.  Peter  alone.  And  though  Roman  Catholics  are 
barred  from  advocating  this  view,  because  the  general  con- 
sent of  the  Fathers  is  against  it,  no  such  restriction  binds 
non-Romans,  who  are  at  liberty  to  take  that  which  is  the 
more  devout  and  reverent  line,  that  no  saying  of  our  Lord 
is  mere  surplusage,  and  without  a  special  force  of  its  own. 
But  when  we  look  for  an  early  interpretation  which  gives 
to  St.  Peter  more  than  the  common  power  of  binding  and 
loosing,  none  is  to  be  found  save  that  of  Tertullian,  namely, 
that  St.  Peter  first  put  the  key  into  the  lock,  and  opened 
the  door  of  faith  to  both  Jews  and  Gentiles. 

Thus,  an  examination  of  the  glosses  of  the  Fathers  on 
the  three  texts  alleged  for  the  Petrine  privilege  results  in 
one  of  two  issues.  Either  there  was  no  such  privilege,  as 
distinguished  from  the  joint  powers  of  the  Apostolate,  con- 
ferred on  St.  Peter  at  all ;  or  else — and  this  is  the  better 
way — his  special  privilege  was  limited  to  preaching  the  first 
Pentecostal  sermon,  and  afterwards  converting  Cornelius — 
events  which  are  absolutely  incapable  of  repetition  :  even 
God  Himself  (if  it  be  lawful  to  say  so)  not  being  able  to 
recall  the  past,  so  that  no  one  else,  after  St.  Peter  had  once 
done  these  two  things,  could  be  the  first  to  teach  Jews  or 
Gentiles  ;  just  as  no  Pope  can  follow  St.  Peter  in  h€mg  first 
to  confess  Christ.  No  other  distinction  is  named  by  the 
ancient  Fathers,  is  claimed  by  St.  Peter  himself  (Actsxv.  7), 
or  is  discoverable  in  Holy  Writ.  And,  consequently,  if  this 
be  the  privilege  of  Peter,  it  did  not  merely  die  with  him,  but 
was  possible  for  even  himself  to  exercise  not  more  than 
twice  in  his  lifetime,  so  that  it  is  absolutely  incommunicable 
and  intransmissible,  and  incapable  of  serving  as  a  precedent 
for  any  claim  whatsoever  based  on  alleged  succession  to  his 
authority  and  primacy.  If  it  could  be  strained  to  mean 
anything,  it  would  be  that  each  Pope  must  needs  start  as  a 
missionary  pioneer  to  some  country  or  nation  which  had 
not  yet  received  the  Gospel.     But  no  Pope  has  ever  done 


88  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  II. 

SO.  With  this  collapse  of  the  alleged  evidence,  the  whole 
case  for  the  divine  character  of  the  Roman  privilege  is 
really  gone,  and  no  mind  trained  in  the  investigation  of 
testimony,  and  free  from  overpowering  bias,  can  do  other 
than  dismiss  it.  But  there  are  various  other  pleas  adduced 
in  its  support,  one  of  which,  as  foremost  among  them, 
must  now  be  considered.  It  is  the  fact  that  several  titles 
of  honour,  dignity,  and  priority  are  bestowed  on  St.  Peter 
in  many  ancient  Christian  writings,  which  are  said  to  imply 
his  unapproachable  and  pre-eminent  authority  over  the 
other  Apostles.  Such  epithets  are  "  first  of  the  leaders  " 
(Trpu)TOKopu(paioc)  ;  "  first  in  place  "  (TrpwroerrnTrjc)  ;  "  chief 
ruler"  (Trpoe^apx*^'')  ^  "president"  (Trpoe^poc) ;  "captain" 
(apx^yof) ;  "  prince,"  "  head,"  and  many  similar  ones. 

Now,  what  these  epithets  (none  of  which,  by-the-by,  is 
found  till  the  fourth  century)  prove  is  the  high  estimation 
in  which  the  ancient  Church  held  St.  Peter,  and  the  fact 
that  it  believed  him  to  enjoy  some  priority  amongst  the 
Apostles.  They  would  be  important  evidence  against  any 
attempt  to  maintain  that,  owing  to  St.  Peter's  fall  and  denial, 
he  had,  in  the  belief  of  early  Christians,  forfeited  his  office 
irreparably  (as  a  strict  Novatian  might  have  taught),  and 
had  been  looked  on  with  a  suspicion  extending  not  merely 
to  his  rank,  but  to  his  teaching,  such  as  we  know  to  have 
existed  against  St.  Paul. 

What  they  do  nof  prove,  nor  even  seem  to  prove,  is  the 
divine  grant  of  supreme  jurisdiction.  For  they  are  not 
authoritative  titles,  either  found  in  Holy  Scripture,  or  con- 
ferred by  conciliar  decree.  The  fact  that  nothing  in  the 
smallest  degree  resembling  even  the  least  exalted  of  them 
is  discoverable  in  the  New  Testament  deprives  them  of  the 
mark  of  revelation ;  the  fact  that  they  are  not  common  to 
the  whole  Church,  leaves  them  without  that  of  universal 
consent.  They  bestow  nothing,  and  they  define  nothing. 
But  what  we  are  in  search  of  is  an  express  bestowal  of 
exceptional  privilege,  as  divinely  revealed  and  clearly 
defined.  The  matter  may  be  illustrated  thus.  The  title 
"  Great  or  Grand  Duke  "  in  modern  Europe  means  one  of 


CHAP.  II.]      LEGAL    EVIDENCE    OF    LITURGIES,    ETC.  89 

two  things,  either  sovereign  authority,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
Grand  Dukes  of  Baden,  Saxe-Weimar,  Oldenburg,  Hesse, 
and  the  two  Mecklenburgs,  or  else  membership  of  the 
Russian  Imperial  family. 

But  the  celebrated  Duke  of  Wellington  was  and  is  known 
as  the  "Great  Duke,"  and  is  frequently  so  described  in 
English  literature,  notably  in  the  Laureate's  funeral  ode. 
Let  us  suppose  the  case  of  a  remote  successor  of  his  in  the 
dukedom  claiming  this  epithet  as  hereditary,  and  as  confer- 
ring sovereign  power,  imperial  rank,  or  even  precedence  over 
all  other  English  Dukes.  How  would  it  be  treated  ?  Not 
by  a  denial  of  the  fact  that  the  epithet  was  applied  to  the 
first  Duke  of  Wellington,  nor  yet  by  an  attempt  to  explain 
away  the  epithet  itself  as  a  mere  piece  of  rhetoric — rather 
admitting  its  entire  fitness — but  by  examining  the  original 
patent  of  the  dukedom,  in  order  to  ascertain  if  a  clause 
embodying  this  particular  distinction  were  part  of  it.  And 
on  its  absence  being  certified,  it  would  be  at  once  ruled 
that  however  deserved  the  epithet  might  be,  it  was  not  con- 
ferred by  any  authority  capable  of  bestowing  either  civil 
power  or  social  precedence,  and  must  therefore  be  regarded 
as  a  mere  personal  token  of  popular  admiration,  conferring 
no  rights  whatever  on  its  subject.  Nor  would  the  case  for 
the  claim  to  sovereign  rank  be  mended  by  advancing  proof 
that  the  first  Duke  of  Wellington  was  Prime  Minister  of  the 
Crown  for  part  of  his  life,  and  Commander-in-Chief  for  a 
much  longer  period.  For  it  would  have  to  be  shown,  in 
the  first  place,  that  these  posts  connoted  irresponsibility  to 
any  superior;  and  in  the  'next,  that  the  patents  which 
bestowed  them  made  them  hereditary,  and  not  merely 
personal.  But  in  St.  Peter's  case  we  have  the  original 
divine  patent,  in  which  no  clause  of  superiority  or  trans- 
missibility  occurs,  and  no  expressions  of  individual  human 
respect  can  read  an  additional  title,  article,  or  section 
into  it. 

In  the  second  place,  the  great  majority  of  these  epithets 
occur  in  documents  of  the  Eastern  Church,  which  has 
never  at  any  time  admitted  the  Roman  claims  of  supremacy, 


90  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.   II. 

and  which  therefore  obviously  puts  no  such  interpretation 
on  its  own  language.  The  Western  titles  of  St.  Peter  are 
fewer  and  far  less  imposing.  And  thirdly,  not  only  are 
equally  strong  phrases  used  concerning  St.  John,  and  yet 
more  forcible  ones  concerning  St.  James,  but  nearly  every 
one  of  these  special  ones  is  applied  to  St.  Paul  as  well  as 
to  St.  Peter  ;  so  that  even  in  the  modern  Roman  Church 
they  are  grouped  together  as  "  Princes  of  the  Apostles."^ 
So,  too,  when  the  full  heraldic  titles  of  an  English  Duke 
are  set  forth,  he  is  described  as  the  "  High,  Puissant,  and 
most  Noble  Prince  " — words  which  scarcely  seem  to  allow 
of  rivalry,  but  which  are  common  to  every  Peer  of  the  same 
grade  ;  while  all  Dukes  have  to  yield  precedence  to  a  mere 
Baron  who  happens  to  be  Lord  Chancellor,  President  of 
the  Council,  or  Lord  Privy  Seal. 

The  investigation  of  the  "  Privilege  of  Peter,"  so  far  as 
the  three  most  ancient  and  important  sources  of  testimony, 
Holy  Scripture,  early  Liturgies,  and  the  comments  of  the 
Fathers  on  the  Petrine  texts  in  the  Gospels  are  concerned, 
thus  results,  to  say  the, very  least,  in  failure  to  establish  it. 

What  remains  now  is  rather  to  find  if  absolutely  conclu- 
sive disproof  be  discoverable ;  but  that  part  of  the  inquiry 
belongs  to  the  domain  of  Church  history,  notably  as 
regards  the  Councils. 

^  St.  John  is  described  by  St.  Chrysostoin  as  the  "  pillar  of  all  the 
Churches  throughout  the  world,  who  hath  the  keys  of  the  kingdom  of 
heaven"  {Horn,  in  St.  Johami.),  while  St.  Paul  is  called  "  the  type  of 
the  world,"  "the  light  of  the  Churches,"  "the  basis  of  the  faith," 
"the  pillar  and  ground  of  the  truth."  St.  James,  yet  more  strongly, 
is  called  by  the  Clementines,  "  bishop  of  bishops"  ;  by  the  Recogni- 
tions, i.  68,  "prince  of  bishops;"  by  Rufinus,  Hist.  Eccl.  i.  I, 
"  bishop  of  the  Apostles  ;  "  and  by  Hesychius,  a  priest  of  Jerusalem, 
quoted  by  Photius,  *'  chief  captain  of  the  New  Jerusalem,"  "  leader  of 
the  priests,"  "prince  [exarch]  of  the  Apostles,"  "summit  of  the 
heights,"  &c. 


,# 


CHAP.  III.]       LEGAL  EVIDENCE  OF  CONCILIAR  DECREES.        9 1 


CHAPTER  III. 

LEGAL   EVIDENCE    OF   CONCILIAR    DECREES. 

The  third  stage  of  the  inquiry  into  the  authenticity  of  the 
Petrine  claim  of  privilege,  already  pursued  through  Holy 
Scripture  and  the  chief  early  glosses  thereupon — that  con- 
cerned with  its  historical  aspect,  and,  first,  the  canons  and 
decrees  of  the  Councils — must  now  be  entered  on.  And 
it  should  be  borne  in  m  nd  that  the  number,  the  variety, 
and  the  distribution  of  hese  Councils  over  a  vast  period 
of  time,  make  it  certain  I  lat  the  "privilege  of  Peter,"  from 
its  intimate  bearing  on  Jisciplinary  questions,  must  needs 
occupy  a  considerable  and  prominent  place  in  them,  if  it 
be  so  much  as  a  fact  of  history,  to  say  nothing  of  being  a 
fundamental  dogma  of  Christianity. 

The  Acts  of  the  Councils,  that  is  to  say,  the  record  of 
their  proceedings  from  their  convocation  till  their  dispersion, 
also  throw  very  much  light  upon  the  discussion ;  but  the 
consideration  of  that  part  of  the  evidence  must  be  post- 
poned for  the  present,  and  only  the  actual  decrees  and 
canons  are  as  yet  to  be  cited. 

Now,  let  us  inquire  into  the  authority  of  the  Councils  as 
recognised  in  the  Church  of  Rome.  First  comes  the  eleventh 
clause  of  the  Creed  of  Pius  IV. : — 

*'  I  likewise  undoubtingly  receive  and  profess  all  other  things  de- 
livered, defined,  and  declared  by  the  Sacred  Canons  and  General 
Councils,  and  especially  by  the  Holy  Council  of  Trent ;  and  I  con- 
demn, reject,  and  anathematize  all  things  contrary  thereto." 

Next,  the  profession  of  St.  Gregory  the  Great,  embodied  in 
the  Canon  Law,  Decret.  i.  dist.  xv.  2  : — 

*'I  acknowledge  that  I  receive  and  venerate,  as  I  do  the  Four 
Gospels,  the  Four  Councils,  to  wit,  the   Nicene    .     .     .     also    the 


92  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  III. 

Constantinopolitan  .  .  .  the  first  of  Ephesus  .  .  .  that  of 
Chalcedon  moreover,  ...  I  embrace  them  with  entire  devotion, 
I  guard  them  with  perfect  approval,  because  on  them,  as  on  a  squared 
stone,  the  building  of  the  Holy  Faith  rises." 

Thirdly,  the  solemn  profession  made  by  every  Pope  at 
his  consecration,  which  in  the  Liber  Diurnus,  as  cited  by 
the  Canon  Law,  Decret.  i.  dist.  xvi.  8,  is  thus  worded : — 

"The  eight  Holy  General  Councils — that  is,  Nice  first,  Constanti- 
nople second,  Ephesus  third,  Chalcedon  fourth,  Constantinople  fifth 
and  sixth,  Nice  seventh,  and  Constantinople  eighth— I  profess  with 
mouth  and  heart  to  be  kept  unaltered  in  a  single  tittle  \jisqne  ad  umim 
apicetn  irmntitilata  servari],  to  account  them  worthy  of  equal  honour 
and  veneration,  to  follow  in  every  respect  whatsoever  they  promul- 
gated or  decreed,  and  to  condemn  whatsoever  they  condemned." 

1.  The  very  ancient  body  of  rules  known  as  the  Canons 
of  the  Apostles  knows  not  of  any  officer  higher  than 
bishops  save  the  primate  or  "  first  bishop  "  of  each  nation 
(e^rouc),  and  is  thus  earlier  than  the  institution  of  pro- 
vincial archbishops  or  metropolitans.  This  "first  bishop," 
albeit  the  chief  single  authority,  whose  consent  is  to  be 
sought  by  the  others,  must  himself  do  nothing  against  their 
consent.  No  further  appeal  is  provided.  The  whole  Canon 
(xxxiii.)  merits  citation,  because  of  its  remarkably  explicit 
testimony  to  that  primitive  independence  of  national 
Churches  which  is  the  peculiar  object  of  Ultramontane 
hostility : — 

"It  is  fit  that  the  bishops  of  each  nation  should  recognise  their 
Primate  [rbv  iv  avroiq  TrpCJTOv]  and  treat  him  as  Head,  and  do  nothing 
of  moment  without  his  assent ;  for  each  bishop  should  manage  those 
concerns  alone  which  pertain  to  his  own  diocese  and  its  dependent 
regions.  But  neither  let  him  [the  Primate]  do  aught  without  the 
assent  of  all ;  for  so  shall  there  be  concord,  and  God  shall  be  glorified 
through  the  Lord  in  the  Holy  Spirit." 

2.  The  Councils  of  Ancyra,  Neocaesarea,  and  Aries  L, 
all  earlier  than  Nicsea,  are  silent. 

3.  The  Council  of  Laodicea  recognises  the  authority  of 
metropolitans  {Can.  xii.),  but  specifies  nothing  higher  or 
more  central  in  character. 

4.  The  first  General  Council  of  Nicsea,  a.d.  325,  con- 


CHAP.  III.]       LEGAL  EVIDENCE  OF  CONCILIAR  DECREES.         93 

tains  an  important  piece  of  evidence.    In  settling  the  claims 
of  the  see  of  Alexandria,  it  decrees  ( Can.  vi.) : — 

'*  Let  the  ancient  customs  prevail  in  Egypt,  and  Libya,  and  Penta- 
polis,  that  the  Bishop  of  Alexandria  should  have  authority  over  all 
these,  since  this  is  the  accustomed  practice  for  the  Bishop  in  Rome 
also  ;  and  similarly  in  Antioch  and  the  other  eparchies  \i.e.  prima- 
tial  sees  of  the  first  class]  let  the  precedence  be  preserved  to  the 
Churches." 

There  is  a  very  ancient  Latin  version  of  this  Canon, 
confirmed  by  Rufinus  {Hist.  Eccl.  xi.  6),  which  explains 
that  its  meaning  was  that  the  Patriarch  of  Alexandria  should 
have  the  same  authority  over  all  Egypt,  Libya,  and  Penta- 
polis  as  the  Pope  of  Rome  had  over  the  "  suburbicarian  " 
Churches  of  his  province ;  that  is  to  say,  those  of  Central 
and  Southern  Italy,  with  the  islands  of  Sicily,  Sardinia,  and 
Corsica ;  a  limitation  which  shows  that  no  universal  juris- 
diction was  then  attributed  to  the  see  of  St.  Peter,  but 
only  a  province  far  exceeded  in  extent,  population,  wealth, 
and  importance  by  several  others  at  the  time,  except  in  so 
far  as  it  contained  the  late  capital  of  the  Empire. 

5.  The  Council  of  Antioch,  a.d.  341,  in  its  ninth  Canon, 
forbids  appeals  to  be  carried  further  {Trepairepu))  than  the 
provincial  synod  assembled  under  the  metropolitan. 

6.  The  Council  of  Sardica,  a.d.  347,  seems  to  allow  an 
appeal  to  the  Pope  under  certain  specified  circumstances. 
Its  third  alleged  Canon  runs  : — 

**  If  in  anv  province  a  bishop  have  a  dispute  with  a  brother  bishop, 
let  neither  of  them  call  in  a  bishop  from  another  province  as  arbiter ; 
but  if  any  bishop  be  cast  in  any  suit,  and  think  his  case  good,  so 
that  the  judgment  ought  to  be  reviewed,  if  it  please  you,  let  us  honour 
the  memor}'  of  St.  Peter  the  Apostle,  and  let  those  who  have  tried  the 
cause  write  to  Julius,  Bishop  of  Rome,  that  if  needful  he  may  pro- 
vide for  a  rehearing  of  the  cause  by  the  bishops  nearest  to  the  pro- 
vince, and  send  arbiters  ;  or  if  it  cannot  be  established  that  the 
matter  needs  reversal,  then  what  has  been  decided  is  not  to  be  re- 
scinded, but  the  existing  state  of  things  is  to  be  confirmed." 

Canon  iv.  provides  that  a  bishop,  deposed  by  a  local 
synod,  and  appealing  to  Rome,  shall  not  have  his  see  filled 
up  till  the  Pope  has  confirmed  the  sentence. 


94  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    III. 

Canon  v.  empowers  the  Pope  either  to  commit  the  re- 
hearing to  the  bishops  of  the  neighbouring  province,  or  to 
send  a  legate  of  his  own  to  rehear  the  cause. 

Assuming,  for  the  moment,  the  genuineness  of  these 
decrees,  which  are  the  basis  of  the  whole  appellate  juris- 
diction of  the  Roman  Church,  the  following  remarks  have  to 
be  made :  (i.)  These  Canons  of  Sardica,  passed  by  an 
exclusively  Western  assembly,  were  never  received  by  the 
Eastern  Church.  (2.)  The  specification  of  the  name  of 
Pope  Julius  makes  it  at  least  doubtful  whether  this  was  not 
a  personal  privilege  which  died  wath  him,  as  there  is  no 
provision  for  securing  the  same  right  to  his  successors. 
(3.)  The  privilege,  such  as  it  is,  has  stringent  limits,  and 
does  not  grant  any  initiative  whatever  to  the  Pope,  who 
must  await  a  direct  apphcation  to  himself;  no  applicant 
save  a  bishop  is  contemplated ;  nor  even  he,  unless  when 
condemned  by  a  synod.  (4.)  The  terms  of  the  Canon, 
inclusive  of  the  reference  to  St.  Peter,  are  such  as  to  show 
that  the  Fathers  of  the  Council  were  making  a  voluntary 
concession,  which  they  were  quite  at  liberty  to  withhold, 
not  complying  with  a  duty  divinely  imposed  upon  them. 

No  satisfactory  evidence  exists  for  the  authenticity  of 
these  canons,  and  there  is  much  reason  for  suspecting 
them  to  be  a  sheer  fabrication  at  Rome.  For  no  hint  of 
their  existence  occurs  till  they  were  falsely  alleged  in  419 
as  Nicene  canons  by  the  Papal  Legate  at  Carthage,  while 
the  African  Bishops  contented  themselves  with  disproving 
that  one  fiction,  but  evidently  knew  nothing  else  whatever 
about  them,  not  being  able  to  assign  them  even  to  Sardica, 
obviously  because  they  had  never  heard  of  them  before ; 
whereas  the  invariable  rule  of  the  time  was  to  send  the 
acts  and  canons  of  synods  of  more  than  provincial  cha- 
racter round  to  all  the  great  Churches  for  approval;  so 
that  the  Sardican  canons,  if  genuine  at  all,  must  have  been 
known  at  Carthage,  at  any  rate  by  424,  after  attention 
there  had  been  drawn  to  them  five  years  previously,  and  a 
consequent  search  made,  supposing  no  earlier  information 
to  have  been  accessible,  as  there  must  have  been,  since 


CHAP.    III.]       LEGAL  EVIDENCE  OF  CONCILIAR  DECREES.      95 

Aratus  of  Carthage  was  at  Sardica ;  and  would  have  brought 
back  any  canons.  What  is  more,  there  is  entire  silence  on  this 
head  in  the  Acts  of  Constantinople  in  381,  and  of  Chalcedon 
in  451,  albeit  both  dealing  with  the  question  of  appellate 
jurisdiction ;  nor  does  St.  Athanasius  refer  to  these  canons. 
And  though  St.  Augustine's  silence  may  be  explained  away 
on  the  ground  that  he  mixes  up  the  Council  of  Sardica 
with  the  seceding  Arian  synod  of  Philippopolis,  no  such 
excuse  accounts  for  the  equal  silence  of  SS.  Basil  and 
Epiphanius,  and  of  the  three  great  ecclesiastical  historians 
of  the  time,  Socrates,  Sozomen,  and  Theodoret,  none  of 
whom  know  of  any  Sardican  document  except  the  synodical 
epistle.  Seeing  that  the  canons,  if  genuine,  altered  for  the 
West  the  system  of  appeals  which  had  prevailed  in  the 
Church  up  to  that  time,  based  as  it  was  on  the  rule  of 
the  civil  code  that  all  cases  should  be  ended  where  they 
originated,  their  legal  and  historical  importance  is  such 
that  this  unbroken  silence  is  nearly  unaccountable.  Nor 
is  any  example  known  of  their  having  been  avowedly  acted 
on  anywhere  in  the  West ;  precisely  where  the  canons  of 
the  Council  must  have  been  known  and  in  many  provincial 
archives,  whereas  they  are  cited  only  in  Papal  missives  to 
Churches  whose  bishops  were  not  at  Sardica.  And  as 
their  Nicene  character  was  alleged  for  the  fourth  time  so 
late  as  484  by  Felix  II.  in  his  dispute  with  Acacius  of 
Constantinople,  it  is  obvious  that  this  persistence  in  one 
falsehood  makes  the  presence  of  another  more  likely.  No 
one  at  Rome  could  have  honestly  believed  them  to  be 
Nicene,  because  they  expressly  name  Pope  Julius,  who  did 
not  begin  to  sit  till  337,  twelve  years  after  the  Council  of 
Nice  (a  few  Latin  MSS.  have  Silvester  here,  an  obviously 
fraudulent  correction).  The  policy  of  urging  them  as  canons 
of  a  great  Council  hke  Sardica,  when  it  proved  impossible 
to  gain  credit  for  them  as  Nicene,  is  so  evident  that  its  not 
being  adopted  prompts  a  suspicion  that  they  were  well 
known  at  Rome  not  to  be  decrees  of  any  council  whatever, 
so  that  any  strict  inquiry  must  tend  to  the  same  result,  and 
that  being  so,  it  was  more  politic  to  keep  up  the  Nicene 


96  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    UK 

claim.  No  Greek  text  is  known  earlier  than  the  sixth 
century,  and  a  very  suspicious  circumstance  marks  the 
three  oldest  Latin  texts,  the  Prism,  that  of  Dionysius 
Exiguus,  and  the  true  Isidore.  These,  as  a  rule,  give 
independent  and  various  translations  of  all  Greek  canons, 
but  they  agree  verbally  for  the  so-called  Sardican  canons. 
The  inference  is  that  there  was  never  a  Greek  original  at 
all,  but  only  a  Latin  forgery.  If  so,  the  whole  fabric  of 
Papal  appeals  falls,  for  it  has  no  other  basis.  Indeed,  the 
non-Sardican  origin  of  these  canons  has  been  strongly 
asserted  of  late  by  a  learned  Italian  theologian,  Aloysius 
Vincenzi,  in  his  treatise,  "De  Hebraeorum  et  Christianorum 
Sacra  Monarchia,"  Vatican  Press,  1875,  who  places  them 
considerably  later,  and  inclines  to  think  them  African. 

7.  The  Council  of  Gangra,  held  between  325  and  380, 
which  enacted  twenty-one  disciplinary  canons,  received  by 
the  whole  Church,  is  silent. 

8.  The  second  General  Council — that  of  Constantinople 
in  381 — supplies  some  very  important  items  of  evidence. 
Although  it  has  always  been  received  as  oecumenical,  it 
was  not  attended  by  any  Western  bishops,  nor  was  the 
Pope  so  much  as  represented  by  any  deputy,  although  the 
Roman  Church  is  bound  by  the  decrees  which  were  passed. 
The  second  canon  of  the  Council  forbids  all  bishops  to  go 
beyond  their  own  borders,  or  to  interfere  in  other  dioceses; 
and  confirms  the  privileges  allowed  to  the  Patriarchs  of 
Alexandria  and  Antioch  by  the  Council  of  Nicaea,  besides 
further  enacting  that  the  affairs  of  the  Asian,  Pontic,  and 
Thracian  dioceses  shall  be  administered  by  their  own 
bishops  only,  and  that  the  synod  of  each  province  shall 
administer  the  affairs  of  the  province ;  which  is  a  virtual 
repeal  of  the  alleged  Canons  of  Sardica.  Canon  iii.  enacts 
that  the  Bishop  of  Constantinople  shall  have  precedence  of 
honour  next  after  the  Bishop  of  Rome,  because  Constan- 
tinople is  New  Rome  ;  an  argument  of  no  weight  whatever, 
if  the  precedence  of  Rome  were  due  to  religious,  not  civil 
and  political,  reasons.  What  this  canon  consequently 
proves  that  in  whatsoever  sense  Rome  was  first  amongst 


CHAP.  III.]       LEGAL  EVIDENCE  OF    CONCILL\R  DECREES.       97 

Catholic  sees,  in  that  same  sense  Constantinople  was 
second.  But  on  the  Ultramontane  theory,  the  Roman 
position  is  absolutely  unique,  and  incapable  of  parallel,  so 
that  it  could  have  no  second,  because  every  other  see  is 
equally  subject  to  its  authority. 

9.  Nine  Councils,  presided  over  by  various  Popes,  were 
held  in  Rome  in  the  fourth  century ;  but  only  one  canon 
is  relevant,  the  first  of  those  enacted  by  the  Synod  in  386 
under  Pope  Siricius,  for  the  restoration  of  ecclesiastical 
discipline  in  Africa,  and  it  merely  forbids  the  consecration 
of  a  bishop  without  the  knowledge  of  the  Roman  Patriarch. 
Nothing  is  said  as  to  his  consent. 

10.  In  a  Council  of  the  whole  African  Church  held  at 
Carthage  in  418,  Faustinus,  Bishop  of  Potenza,  one  of  the 
legates  of  the  Popes  Zosimus  and  Boniface  I.,  claimed  that 
the  right  of  appeal  to  Rome,  given  by  the  Sardican  Canons 
cited  above,  which  he  alleged  to  be  Canons  of  the  Council 
of  Nicaea,  should  be  allowed  by  the  African  Church. 
Alypius,  Bishop  of  Tagaste,  immediately  challenged  their 
authenticity,  as  he  had  never  seen  them  in  any  copy  of  the 
Nicene  Canons,  and  proposed  that  envoys  should  be  sent 
to  Alexandria,  Antioch,  and  Constantinople  to  verify  the 
fact.  This  was  at  first  rejected,  as  tending  to  cast  a  doubt 
on  the  Pope's  integrity,  though  subsequently  acted  upon ; 
and  it  was  then  proposed  to  write  to  him  to  examine  the 
question  for  himself;  but  this  was  not  carried  out.  Theni 
the  genuine  Nicene  Canons  were  read,  as  also  those  of 
previous  African  Councils,  and  reaffirmed.  Next,  the  case- 
of  Apiarius,  a  deposed  and  excommunicated  priest,  who 
had  appealed  to  Rome  and  had  been  re-admitted  to  com- 
munion by  Pope  Zosimus,  was  considered  anew  on  the 
grounds  alleged  by  Faustinus,  and  was  setded  by  letting 
the  matter  stand  over  till  the  canons  had  been  verified, 
and  by  enacting  a  new  Canon  (cxxv.)  forbidding  all  appeals 
beyond  sea,  or  to  any  authority  save  African  Councils 
and  Primates,  under  pain  of  excommunication  throughout 
Africa ;  and,  finally,  the  Council  sent  a  synodical  letter  to 
Pope  Boniface  by  two  legates,  complaining  of  his  conduct 

H 


98  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    III. 

in  reinstating  Apiarius,  disputing  the  genuineness  of  the 
canons  alleged  by  Faustinus,  and  telling  the  Pope  in  the 
plainest  language  that  nothing  should  make  them  tolerate 
his  conduct,  or  suffer  such  insolence  {typhiim  superbice)  at 
the  hand  of  his  emissaries,  a  protest  virtually  aimed  at 
himself,  who  had  commissioned  and  despatched  them. 
One  of  the  signatories  of  this  epistle  was  St.  Augustine. 

Another  Council,  also  held  at  Carthage,  five  years  later, 
in  424,  had  this  business  of  Apiarius  before  it  again.  He 
had  been  a  second  time  deposed  for  immorality,  and  had 
got  another  Pope — Celestine  I. — to  rehabiHtate  him,  and 
to  send  him  back  to  Africa  with  Bishop  Faustinus  to  obtain 
his  reinstatement  there.  But  his  guilt  was  proved  at  the 
Council  by  his  own  confession,  and  his  degradation  con- 
firmed. Hereupon  the  Fathers  wrote  to  Pope  Celestine, 
telling  him  that  they  had  ascertained  that  the  alleged 
Nicene  Canons  were  not  of  that  Council  at  all ;  that  the 
Pope  had  transgressed  the  genuine  Nicene  Canons  by  in- 
terfering in  another  province ;  and  that  they  could  find  no 
authority  for  his  undertaking  to  send  legates  to  them  or 
any  other  Churches,  so  that  they  begged  him  to  refrain 
from  doing  so  in  future,  for  fear  the  Church  should  suffer 
through  pride  and  ambition :  and  added  that  they  were 
quite  competent,  with  the  aid  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  to  manage 
their  own  affairs  on  the  spot,  better  than  he,  with  less  local 
knowledge,  could  do  for  them  at  Rome ;  ending  by  telling 
him  that  they  had  had  quite  enough  of  Faustinus,  and 
wanted  no  more  of  him. 

II.  The  third  General  Council,  that  of  Ephesus  in  431, 
was  held  in  consequence  of  the  failure  of  Pope  Celestine 
to  check  the  heresy  of  Nestorius  by  condemning  it  in  a 
merely  local  Roman  Synod,  and  by  threatening  him  with 
excommunication  and  deposition  in  case  he  refused  to 
retract.  No  practical  impression  was  made  on  Nestorius 
or  the  bishops  of  his  party  thereby,  and  the  Pope  joined 
in  a  petition  to  the  Emperor  to  convoke  a  General  Council 
as  the  only  means  of  settling  the  dispute ;  while  Nestorius 
himself  was  duly  invited  to  attend  in  his  episcopal  capacity, 


CHAP.  III.]      LEGAL  EVIDENCE  OF  CONCILIAR  DECREES.        99 

and  to  take  his  seat,  although  the  time  prescribed  by  the 
Pope  for  his  retractation  had  long  expired.  The  Council 
was  presided  over  by  St.  Cyril  of  Alexandria,  the  most 
powerful  prelate  of  his  time,  and  two  of  its  canons  have 
an  important  bearing  on  subsequent  events.  They  are : 
Canon  vii.,  which  enacts  the  penalty  of  deposition  against 
any  bishop  or  priest  innovating  on  or  varying  the  Nicene 
Creed ;  and  Canon  viii.,  which,  after  disallowing  the  claim 
of  the  Patriarch  of  Antioch  to  ordain  in  Cyprus,  unless  he 
could  prove  such  to  have  been  the  ancient  usage,  enacts 
that  in  all  other  dioceses  and  provinces  no  bishop  shall 
invade  any  province  which  was  not  from  the  beginning 
under  his  jurisdiction  or  that  of  his  predecessors  : — 

**  And  if  any  should  so  occupy  one,  or  forcibly  subject  it  to  himself, 
let  him  make  personal  restitution,  lest  the  statutes  of  the  Fathers  should 
be  violated,  mid  lest  the  pride  of  power  should  o'eep  in  under  the 
pretext  of  a  sacred  office,  and  thus  we  might  unknowingly  and 
gradually /i7j£?  Ma/ //r^fl'ijw  which  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord  and  Saviour 
of  all  men  obtained  for  us  with  His  precious  blood,  and  bestowed 
upon  us." 

12.  The  fourth  General  Council,  that  of  Chalcedon, 
A.D.  451,  has  more  than  one  disproof  of  the  Petrine  claims 
in  its  decrees.  Its  ninth  Canon,  on  ecclesiastical  appeals 
(of  which  Canon  xvii.  is  little  more  than  a  reiteration), 
directs  litigants  to  apply  to  the  diocesan  bishop.  If  he, 
or  any  other  bishop,  be  himself  one  of  the  parties  to  the 
suit,  it  is  to  be  carried  before  the  provincial  synod.  If 
a  metropolitan  be  one  of  the  parties  concerned,  the  exarch, 
or  primate  of  the  region,  is  to  take  cognisance  of  the  case ; 
and,  in  the  last  resort,  the  Patriarch  of  the  imperial  city  of 
Constantinople  is  to  decide  as  final  arbiter.  The  Canon 
seems  to  apply  to  the  whole  Church,  in  which  case  it 
means  that  appeals  were  now  made  to  lie  from  Rome 
itself  to  Constantinople ;  but  it  cannot  possibly  mean  less 
than  that  no  appeal  lay  from  Constantinople  to  Rome, 
nor  than  the  formal  reversal  of  the  Sardican  Canons,  even 
on  the  assumption  that  they  are  genuine.  But  the  decrees 
of  this  General  Council  also  contain  what  is  perhaps  the 

H  2 


lOO  THE   PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    III. 

weightiest  item  of  synodical  testimony  as  yet  adduced.     In 
Canon  xxviii.  the  Council  decreed  as  follows: — 

*'  In  all  respects  following  the  definitions  of  the  holy  Fathers,  and 
acknowledging  the  Canon  of  the  150  God-beloved  bishops  which  has 
just  been  read,  we  likewise  make  the  same  definition  and  decree  con- 
cerning the  precedence  of  the  most  holy  Church  of  Constantinople, 
or  New  Rome.  For  the  Fathers  with  good  reason  bestcrwed  prece- 
dency on  the  chair  of  Old  Rome,  because  it  was  the  imperial  city  (5ia 
TO  ^aaikivtiv  Tijv  rroXiv  iKtivrjv),  and  the  150  God-beloved  bishops, 
moved  by  the  same  view,  conferred  equal  precedence  on  the  most 
holy  throne  of  New  Rome,  rightly  judging  that  the  city  honoured  with 
the  empire  and  the  senate  should  enjoy  the  same  precedence  as  Rome> 
the  old  seat  of  empire,  and  should  be  magnified  as  it  was  in  ecclesi- 
astical matters  also,  being  second  after  it." 

And  the  Canon  then  proceeds  to  confer  on  the  Patriarch 
of  Constantinople  the  right  of  ordaining  all  the  metro- 
politans of  Asia,  Pontus,  Thrace,  and  the  bishops  in 
barbarous  regions ;  a  fact  which  proves  that  not  mere 
honorary  dignity,  but  substantial  authority,  was  included  in 
the  "  precedence  "  specified.  The  Roman  legates  refused 
to  be  present  when  the  Canon  was  passed,  and  demanded 
another  session  of  the  Council  to  abrogate  it,  producing  a 
forged  version  of  the  sixth  Canon  of  Nicaea,  in  which  the 
words,  "  The  Roman  see  hath  always  had  the  primacy,"  had 
been  interpolated,  and  alleging  besides  that  force  had  been 
used  to  compel  the  bishops  to  sign  the  Canon.  The  Conciliar 
Judges,  however,  after  hearing  the  objections,  ruled  that 
the  alleged  Canon  of  Nicaea  was  unauthentic;  that  the 
Roman  Bishop  had  merely  a  priority  of  honour,  but  that 
the  Patriarch  of  Constantinople  was  his  equal  in  all  solid 
privileges;  and  after  the  assembled  bishops  had  publicly 
denied  that  they  acted  under  compulsion,  decided  that  the 
Canon  must  stand. 

The  then  Pope,  St.  Leo  the  Great,  resisted  this  Canon 
always,  and  even  professed  to  annul  it,  yet  on  the  purely  tech- 
nical grounds  that  it  conflicted  with  the  sixth  Nicene  Canon, 
which  gave  the  second  place  to  Alexandria,  and  trenched 
besides  on  the  rights  of  many  metropolitans  {Epist.  Ixxix.), 
not  on  its  contradiction  of  the  privilege  of  Peter,  but  he 


CHAP.    III.]    LEGAL  EVre^gCE,^ilsMn;I LI AR  DECREES.       lOI 


was  unable  to  prevent  its  execution,  or  to  affect  its  validity. 
There  is  no  question  at  all  as  to  its  entire  genuineness,  as 
to  its  being  a  mere  gloss  upon  and  expansion  of  Canon  iii. 
of  Constantinople  I.,  or  as  to  the  formality  with  which  it 
was  discussed  in  the  Council,  so  that  it  is  fully  enforced  on 
Roman  Catholic  acceptance  by  the  three  Roman  professions 
of  adherence  to  ^//decrees,  without  exception,  of  the  General 
Councils,  cited  above.  And  thus  we  are  faced  by  one  or 
other  of  the  following  conclusions.  Either  the  Council,  in 
holding  that  the  Roman  primacy  is  a  mere  human  and 
ecclesiastical  dignity,  conferred  by  the  Church,  and  not  a 
divine  and  inalienable  privilege,  was  wrong  on  the  point  of 
fact,  or  it  was  right.  If  it  was  wrong  (apart  from  the 
objection  that  then  the  whole  fabric  of  Conciliar  authority 
falls,  as  no  Council  has  ever  been  more  authoritative,  or 
more  definitely  acknowledged  by  the  Roman  Church 
itself),  then,  since  its  dogmatic  decrees  are  allowed  to  be 
the  standard  of  orthodoxy,  and  yet  as  it  must  have  erred 
in  dogma  if  the  Roman  primacy  be  matter  of  faith,  the  con- 
clusion is,  that  the  said  primacy  is  at  best  not  matter  of  dog- 
matic faith,  but  only  of  historical  fact ;  and  so  the  Canon 
supplies  proof  that  the  Church  of  the  fifth  century  did  not 
hold  the  Papal  claim  to  be  of  divine  origin  or  theological 
obligation.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the  Council  was  right 
on  the  point  of  fact,  there  is  nothing  left  to  be  said  in 
favour  of  even  the  historical  character  of  the  alleged  Petrine 
privilege. 

There  is  no  difficulty  in  bringing  the  matter  to  a  deci- 
sive test.  If  the  allegation  of  the  Council  be  true,  that 
the  civil  position  of  Rome  was  the  sole  cause  of  its  ecclesi- 
astical primacy,  then  the  same  principle  will  be  found  to 
affect  the  precedence  of  other  great  sees.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  the  Ultramontane  contention  be  true,  then  the 
rival  principle  will  be  seen  at  work,  and  the  sees  will  be 
found  to  rank  according  to  the  dignity  of  their  founders  or 
the  august  character  of  their  traditions.  It  is  not  ques- 
tioned that  it  was  regarded  as  a  high  distinction  for  any  see 
to  be  entitled  to  the  epithet  of  Apostolic,  and  to  count  an 


I02  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    Ill, 

Apostle  as  its  first  originator,  if  not  as  its  earliest  bishop 
(just  as  it  is  a  feather  in  the  cap  of  a  school  or  a  society  in 
modern  England  to  be  of  Royal  foundation),  but  the 
strong  practical  good  sense  which  marked  the  organization 
of  the  early  Church  was  not  likely  to  sacrifice  convenience 
to  sentiment. 

Accordingly,  although  Jerusalem  had  the  highest  claim 
of  all  in  point  of  origin,  having  been  founded  as  a  Church 
by  Christ  Himself,  and  organized  as  a  diocese  under  St. 
James  by  the  whole  College  of  Apostles,  as  Hegesippus, 
cited  by  Eusebius  {Hist.  EccL,  ii.  23),  records  for  us,  yet  in 
consequence  of  its  political  insignificance,  notably  after  the 
substitution  of  ^lia  Capitolina  for  it  under  Hadrian,  it  was 
at  first  a  mere  suffraganate  of  the  Metropolitan  of  Csesarea, 
himself  subject  to  the  Patriarch  of  Antioch — a  rank  com- 
parable to  that  of  Sodor  and  Man  amongst  English  sees. 
It  was  not  till  the  Council  of  Nicsea  that  the  Bishop  of 
Jerusalem  was  given  a  certain  honorary  precedence, 
because  of  the  august  memories  attached  to  his  see,  but 
even  then  saving  all  the  rights  of  his  metropolitan  over  him 
(Ca?L  vii.),  and  not  till  the  Council  of  Chalcedon  in  451 
did  Juvenal,  forty-fourth  Bishop  of  Jerusalem,  obtain  the 
elevation  of  his  see  to  the  Patriarchal  rank  which  it  has 
ever  since  held,  though  always  last  in  order  of  the  five 
chief  sees,  and  narrowest  in  area  of  jurisdiction.  On 
the  other  hand,  Alexandria,  which  never  claimed  any 
higher  ecclesiastical  title  than  that  of  the  "Evangelical 
See,"  as  founded  by  St.  Mark,  was  the  second  city  of 
the  Roman  Empire,  and  so  was  placed  next  to  Rome 
ecclesiastically  also,  first  informally  de  facto,  and  then 
formally  de  jure  by  the  Council  of  Nicsea.  Similarly, 
Antioch,  the  third  great  see  of  Christendom,  was  the 
third  city  of  the  Empire  (Joseph.,  Bell.  Jud.,  iii.  3),  but 
although  it  had  a  more  illustrious  origin  as  a  diocese 
than  Alexandria,  as  having  been  not  only  undoubtedly 
founded  by  Apostles,  but  alleged  to  have  been  for  seven 
years  the  see  of  St.  Peter  himself,  it  never  attained  pre- 
cedence over  the  more  important  capital  of  Egypt.     And 


CHAP.  III.]    LEGAL  EVIDENCE  OF  CONCILIAR  DECREES.       I03 

Ephesus,  though  Apostolic  by  at  least  two  claims,  through 
St.  Paul  and  St.  John,  never  rose  to  higher  rank 
than  that  of  exarchate  or  primacy.  In  truth,  no  Pauline 
see  (unless  we  account  Rome  such)  was  ever  placed 
in  the  first  rank,  and  many  which  St.  Paul  founded 
continued  as  mere  suffraganates  of  cities  greater  in  civil 
importance.^ 

St.  Cyprian  gives  as  the  reason  for  the  precedence  of 
Rome  over  Carthage,  that  it  was  a  larger  and  more  impor- 
tant city : — 

"  Plainly  because  Rome  ought  to  precede  Carthage  by  reason  of  its 
size  {pro  mapiiludhu  sud),  Novatus  committed  greater  and  graver 
offences  there.  He  who  made  a  deacon  here  against  the  Church, 
made  a  bishop  there." — Ep.  xlix.  ad  Cornel.  Papam. 


*  Here  is  the  place  to  mention  a  linguistic  ambiguity  of  which  Roman 
controversialists  have  not  been  slow  to  avail  themselves.  The  Latin 
language,  unlike  Greek,  English,  French,  and  German,  has  no  definite 
article,  no  words  such  as  a  and  the^  to  express  the  difference  between 
that  which  is  definite  and  that  which  is  indefinite,  and  the  context  alone 
gives  any  clue  to  the  distinction,  but  cannot  always  do  so.  Consequently, 
if  we  have  Rome  entitled  Sedes  Apostolica  by  an  ancient  Latin  writer,  it 
need  mean  no  more  than  "  an  Apostolic  See,"  one  of  the  many  dioceses 
founded  by  an  Apostle.  But  they  now  invariably  translate  it  as  ^^  the 
Apostolic  See,"  implying  a  monopoly  of  that  title  and  any  attendant 
privileges.  But  in  fact  the  epithet  was  common  to  many  such  Churches 
in  early  times.  Thus  TertuUian  says  :  "  Cast  a  glance  over  the  Apos- 
tolic Churches,  in  which  the  very  thrones  of  the  Apostles  are  still  pre- 
eminent in  their  places  .  .  .  Achaia  is  very  near  you,  in  which  you 
find  Corinth  .  .  .  you  have  Philippi  .  .  .  you  have  the  Thessalonians. 
Since  you  are  able  to  cross  to  Asia,  you  find  Ephesus.  Since,  more- 
over, you  are  close  upon  Italy,  you  have  Rome." — De  Prascript.  Uteres. 
xxxvi.  Not  only  so,  but  St.  Paulinus  of  Nola  (t43i)  uses  this  phrase 
*' Sedes  Apostolica^^  to  denote  the  rank  of  any  bishop,  even  of  com- 
paratively unimportant  sees.  Thus,  he  applies  it  to  Alypius  of 
Tagaste  {Ep.  iii.  i)  and  to  Victricius  of  Rouen  {Ep.  xviii.  6). 
"We  do  get  the  definite  article  prefixed,  and  that  by  the  Second 
General  Council  (Constantinople),  but  the  Church  so  distinguished  is 
Antioch,  described  by  the  Fathers  as  ^^  the  most  ancient  and  truly  Apos- 
tolical Church,  in  Antioch  of  Syria  "  (r^c  Z\  TrptaftvraTTig  khI  ovtuq 
AiroaToXiKtiQ  iKKXijaiag  tijq  kv  AvTioxfi<}  Tijg  Sypi'ac). — Theodoret, 
I/.  £.  V.  9. 


I04  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    III. 

The  principle  had,  in  fact,  been  laid  down  by  the  Council 
of  Antioch  (a.d.  341)  more  than  a  century  earlier  than 
Chalcedon,  in  its  ninth  Canon  : — 

*'  It  is  fit  that  the  bishops  in  every  province  should  know  that  the 
bishop  presiding  in  the  chief  city  \inetropolis\  is  to  have  superin- 
tendence of  the  whole  province,  because  all  people  who  have  busi- 
ness come  together  from  all  quarters  to  the  chief  city  :  for  which 
reason  it  has  seemed  good  that  he  should  have  precedence  in 
honour  also,  and  that  the  other  bishops  should  do  nothing 
important  without  him,  but  only  such  things  as  concern  each 
one's  diocese  and  its  dependencies,  adhering  to  the  ancient  rule  of 
our  fathers." 

This  Canon  seems  to  give  the  best  explanation  of  a  very 
obscure  sentence  in  St.  Irenaeus,  on  which  Ultramontanes 
lay  great  stress :  a  passage  where  the  Greek  is  lost,  and  the 
very  barbarous  Latin  translation  alone  is  extant.  It  runs 
thus : — 

"For  it  is  necessary  that  every  Church  should  come  together  to 
this  [Roman]  Church,  because  of  its  preferable  [or  more  powerful] 
principality  {Ad  hanc  enim  ecclesiam,  propter potiorem  [a/.  potentioret7i\ 
principalitatem,  necesse  est  omttem  convettire  ecclesiam).'" — Adv.  Hczr. 
III.  iii.  2. 

In  the  absence  of  the  original  text,  it  cannot  be  said 
what  stood  there,  and  so  the  passage  does  not  satisfy  the  two 
primary  requirements  of  Canon  law,  as  being  either  the 
original  document  or  free  from  ambiguity.  The  Ultramon- 
tane gloss  is  that  the  words  imply  superior  authority  as  of 
divine  right.  A  second  view,  based  on  a  conjectural 
restoration  of  the  Greek  text,  as  having  had  the  word 
apyawTTqra  for  principalitatem,  and  on  the  fact  that  the 
word  principalis  is  used  elsewhere  in  the  Latin  version  to 
mean  first  in  order  of  time,  is  that  St.  Irenaeus  refers  here 
to  the  superior  antiquity  of  the  Roman  Church,  confessedly 
the  oldest  in  the  West.  This  interpretation,  however,  does 
not  accord  with  the  phrase  "  convenire  ad"  whose  only 
possible  meaning  in  Latin  is  "  assemble  at,"  whereas  if 
"  agree  with  "  were  intended,  as  Ultramontanes  assert,  the 
phrase  used  would  be  '''convenire  cu7n^"  followed  by  the 


CHAP.  III.]     LEGAL  EVIDENCE  OF  CONCILIAR  DECREES.        I05 

ablative  ^'^  hac  ecdesidy  Moreover,  part  of  the  context, 
generally  overloooked,  is  decisive  for  the  first  meaning, 
stating  as  it  does  that  "  In  this  Church  the  tradition  derived 
from  the  Apostles  is  maintained  by  the  faithful  from  all 
quarters  {undique)"  This  shows  that  it  was  not  any  pecu- 
liar privilege  vesting  in  the  Roman  see  or  Bishop  which 
served  to  safeguard  doctrine  there,  but  the  fact  of  the  great 
concourse  at  Rome  from  all  parts  of  the  Empire,  enabling 
local  traditions  to  be  compared,  sifted,  and  checked  there, 
as  they  could  be  nowhere  else.^  But  the  simplest  and  most 
obvious  interpretation  is  to  take  the  Councils  of  Antioch 
and  Chalcedon  as  our  guides,  and  so  to  understand  the 
reference  to  be  to  the  position  of  Rome  as  the  capital  city 
of  the  Empire,  and  thus  as  possessing  in  a  pre-eminent 
degree  the  qualities  of  civil  precedence  and  of  habitual 
resort  of  a  great  concourse  of  visitors.  As  a  fact,  the 
Eastern  part  of  the  Roman  Empire  was  so  much  more 
populous  and  prosperous  than  the  West  at  this  time,  that 
no  Western  city,  except  Milan,  was  thought  of  sufficient 
importance  to  be  made  the  head  of  a  greater  province  or 
exarchate,  such  as  Caesarea,  Ephesus,  and  Heraclea,  them- 
selves inferior  to  the  Patriarchal  sees,  were  in  the  East. 
And  Milan  remained  absolutely  independent  of  Rome  till 
571,  nor  was  it  effectually  brought  under  Papal  authority 


'  And  we  have  got,  besides,  a  probable  clue  to  the  original  words 
for  ''* convenire  ad^''  supplied  by  that  ninth  canon  of  the  Council  of 
Antioch  in  341,  which  enacts  that  the  Bishop  of  the  chief  city  in  each 
eparchy  is  to  hold  the  first  place,  and  to  have  charge  of  the  concerns 
of  the  entire  eparchy,  "because  all  persons  who  have  business  come 
together  in  the  chief  city  from  all  quarters,"  where  the  Greek  is  lia 
TO  tv  Tt]  fitjrpo-TroXfi  TtavraxoOiv  avvrpsx^iv  wavTag  Tovg  to.  TrpdyixaTo. 
IxovTog  ;  while  it  is  further  stated  that  this  is  not  a  new  enactment,  but 
"  according  to  the  old  rule  which  governed  our  fathers."  This  view 
is  confirmed  by  the  language  of  a  Greek  MS.  Synodicon,  printed  by 
Cardinal  Mai  :  "  Formerly,  in  Old  Rome,  there  was  a  confluence  of 
business  matters,  and  on  this  account  all  people  flocked  thither 
((TvvtTpixov)  ....  for  which  reason  the  distinction  of  precedency 
came  to  the  throne  of  Rome."  Spicilegium  Homanum,  viii.  Proef. 
p.  xxvi. 


Io6  THE    PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  III. 

till  St.  Gregory  the  Great  availed  himself  of  a  vacancy  in 
the  see  at  a  very  troubled  time  (592)  to  interfere  in  its  con- 
cerns and  to  send  a  legate  thither. 

Thus  the  evidence  of  Church  history  amply  justifies  the 
Fathers  of  Chalcedon,  and  proves  that  they  were  right  in 
alleging  that  the  political  supremacy  of  Rome  as  the 
capital  of  the  Empire,  making  it  the  natural  centre  of  all 
business  affairs,  and  the  chief  resort  of  travellers  from  all 
quarters,  made  it  also  the  most  convenient  centre  for  that 
great  missionary  organization,  whose  battle  was  emphati- 
cally fought  in  the  large  towns,  as  the  now  significant  word 
"pagan,"  once  meaning  "rustic,"  or  "villager,"  teaches  us. 
And  down  to  the  middle  of  the  third  century  all  the  extant 
evidence  shows  that  the  primacy  was  held  to  reside  in  the 
Church  of  Rome,  not  in  its  Bishops  who  derived  his  im- 
portance from  the  see,  not  vice  versa.  St.  Clement,  for  ex- 
ample, writes  to  the  Corinthians  in  the  name  of  the  Roman 
Church,  not  in  his  own. 

It  may  not  be  inappropriate  to  remark  that  in  the 
French  Church,  although  the  titular  dignity  of  "  Primate 
of  all  the  Gauls"  is  still  reserved  to  the  Archbishop  of 
Lyons,  yet  the  virtual  primacy  has  long  been  in  the  hands 
of  the  Archbishop  of  Paris,  albeit  that  capital  was  only  a 
suffragan  see  of  the  Province  of  Sens  until  1622,  when  it  was 
raised  to  metropolitan  rank. 

13.  Twelve  Roman  Synods  were  held  under  various 
Popes  during  the  fifth  century.  The  only  relevant  decrees 
are  the  deposition  of  Nestorius  by  the  Council  of  430 
under  Pope  Celestine,  disregarded,  as  we  have  seen,  by  the 
Council  of  Ephesus ;  the  sentence  of  the  Synod  of  445 
under  Leo  the  Great,  restoring  Celidonius,  Bishop  of 
BesanQon,  who  had  been  synodically  deposed  by  his  metro- 
politan, St.  Hilary  of  Aries,  and  by  St.  Germanus  of 
Auxerre,  and  excommunicating  the  former  for  insisting  on 
his  metropolitical  rights  and  denying  the  Pope's  title  to 
hear  the  appeal,  on  the  merits  of  which  Leo  was  in  truth 
entirely  deceived  by  the  appellant — but  St.  Hilary's  resist- 
ance, never  retracted,  has  not  prevented  him  from  being 


CHAP.  III.]     LEGAL  EVIDENCE  OF  CONCILIAR  DECREES.        I07 

a  Saint  and  Doctor  of  the  Roman  Church;  the  fifth  Canon 
of  the  Synod  of  465,  forbidding  a  bishop  to  name  his 
successor — a  virtual  repudiation  of  the  devolution  from  St. 
Peter  to  Linus ;  the  condemnation  of  Acacius  of  Con- 
stantinople and  Peter  of  Alexandria  by  Felix  III.  in  484, 
which,  instead  of  being  received  in  the  East,  was  met  by  a 
retaliatory  excommunication  of  the  Pope,  and  caused  a 
schism  of  thirty-five  years,  healed  at  last  by  a  compromise ; 
and  the  famous  Synod  of  496  under  Pope  Gelasius,  in 
which  apocryphal  books  were  condemned,  the  accredited 
Councils  acknowledged,  and  the  writings  of  certain  Fathers, 
inclusive  of  SS.  Cyprian,  Basil,  and  Augustine,  declared 
entirely  orthodox;  thus  cutting  off  objections  to  much  of 
the  evidence  marshalled  hitherto  against  the  Petrine  privi- 
lege. There  was  also  a  definition  of  the  limits  of  his 
ecclesiastical  and  secular  powers  given  by  the  Pope  in  this 
Council,  ending  with  the  words  :  "  It  is  the  duty  of 
Pontiffs  to  obey  the  imperial  ordinances  in  all  things 
temporal."  Ten  other  local  Councils  were  held  in  this 
century,  at  Turin,  Milevis,  Zella  or  Telepa,  Riez,  Orange  I., 
Vaison  I.,  Aries  II.,  Angers,  Tours  L,  and  Vannes.  All 
they  yield  is  that  at  Turin  in  401  the  Council  adjudged 
the  primacy  of  Narbonne  for  Hfe  to  Proculus  of  Marseilles, 
though  bishop  in  another  province,  decreeing  that  after 
his  death  the  new  Primate  should  be  one  of  the  bishops  of 
the  province  of  Narbonne ;  and  that  the  dispute  between 
the  Archbishops  of  Aries  and  Vienne,  who  both  claimed 
the  primacy  of  Viennese  Gaul,  should  be  settled  by  giving 
the  metropolitanate  to  whichever  claimant  could  prove  his 
see  to  be  the  civil  capital  of  the  province — another  item  of 
evidence  in  favour  of  Canon  xxviii.  of  Chalcedon — while 
no  hint  of  reference  to  the  Pope  as  arbiter  occurs  ;  and  that 
at  Zella  in  418,  where  the  letter  of  Pope  Siricius  drafted 
in  the  Roman  synod  of  386  was  read,  and  an  exception  was 
allowed  (in  accordance  therewith)  in  the  Roman  Church 
to  the  fourth  Nicene  canon,  requiring  three  bishops  to 
consecrate  another. 

14.  There  is  a  curious  piece  of  evidence  at  the  begin- 


I08  THE   PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  III. 

ning  of  the  sixth  centuiy,  which  looks  at  first  as  though 
making  for  the  Papal  claims,  but  which  proves  all  the 
more  against  them  because  of  the  peculiar  circumstances. 

The  Bishops  of  Italy,  excepting  the  northern  portions 
within  the  provinces  of  Milan  and  Grado  or  Aquileia,  have 
always  been  zealous  upholders  of  the  Papal  claims — indeed 
the  most  so  of  any  section  of  the  episcopate,  till  the  com- 
paratively modern  development  of  bishops  in  partibus  as  a 
class.  The  Pope,  as  their  immediate  superior,  exercising 
direct  practical  jurisdiction  over  them,  has  necessarily  been 
a  more  important  personage  in  their  eyes,  and  been  treated 
by  them  with  a  profounder  deference,  than  is  the  case  in 
other  parts  of  the  Latin  obedience;  and  consequently, 
while  acts  of  submission  on  their  part  prove  very  little, 
any  display  of  independence  proves  a  great  deal.  It 
happened  that  Pope  Symmachus,  who  sat  from  498  to  514, 
was  accused  of  very  grave  crimes  before  Theodoric  the 
Ostrogoth,  who  compelled  the  reluctant  bishops  of  the 
suburbicarian  provinces  of  Italy  to  hold  a  council  to  try 
the  Pope.  Symmachus  himself  had  the  good  sense  to  see 
that  nothing  else  could  possibly  clear  him,  and  accordingly 
a  synod  of  seventy-six  bishops  was  convened  at  Rome  in 
501,  known  in  history  as  the  Synodus  Palmaris.i  It  dis- 
played the  utmost  unwillingness  to  assume  any  judicial 
authority  whatever,  and  several  of  the  prelates  expressed 
their  opinion  that,  as  the  Pope's  inferiors,  they  were  not 
competent  to  try  him  at  all,  while  some  went  further,  and 
at  least  implied  that  only  God  could  decide  a  cause  wherein 
so  august  a  personage  was  the  defendant.  But  although 
they  studiously  avoided  using  the  legal  forms  of  a  trial, 
still,  in  order  to  rehabilitate  the  Pope,  they  were  obliged  to 
embody  their  acquittal  in  the  shape  of  a  decree,  in  which 
they  empowered  him  to  administer  the  sacraments  in  all 
churches  attached  to  his  see,  and  recommended  the  faith- 
ful to  receive  the  Holy  Communion  at  his  hands,  in  token 

'  From  the  palm- ornamentation  of  the  porch  of  St.  Peter's,  where 
■it  was  held. 


CHAP.    III.]     LEGAL  EVIDENCE  OF  CONCILIAR  DECREES.       I09 

that  the  strife  was  now  ended,  and  his  innocence  esta- 
blished ;i  whereby,  despite  their  reclamation,  they  proved 
that  it  was  in  their  power  to  have  forbidden  him  to 
administer  the  sacraments  and  the  laity  to  receive  them 
from  him,  and  so  that  even  as  a  mere  local  synod,  with  no 
pretensions  to  oecumenicity,  they  collectively  were  the 
Pope's  superiors.  Symmachus  had  been  acquitted  by 
another  Council  of  ii6  bishops  in  the  previous  year,  but 
as  the  forms  of  a  regular  trial  were  evaded  then  also,  that 
acquittal  affords  no  evidence  as  to  his  accountability  to  a 
local  synod,  and  it  might  be  explained  as  no  more  than  a 
public  and  official  vote  of  confidence,  which,  however 
gratifying  and  morally  influential,  could  have  no  canoni- 
cally  legal  force  in  respect  of  one  of  his  exalted  rank.  The 
importance  of  this  synod,  as  disproving  the  Gallican  theory, 
that  although  the  Pope  is  accountable  and  inferior  to  the 
rare  and  exceptional  tribunal  of  a  General  Council,  nothing 
less  may  take  cognisance  of  his  acts,  or  presume  to  judge 
him,  cannot  be  overrated. 

The  sixth  century  was  an  era  of  Councils  in  the  Churches 
of  Gaul  and  Spain,  held  for  doctrinal  and  disciplinary  pur- 
poses, and  at  once  so  numerous,  and  dealing  with  so  large 
a  number  of  important  and  even  vital  topics,  that  it  is  all 
but  impossible  to  believe  that  if  the  Papal  claims  had  been 


*  The  crucial  words  of  the  decree  run  thus  :  "  Quibus  allegatis 
cum  Dei  nostri  obtestatione  decemimus  .  .  .  .  ut  Symmachus  Papa, 
sedis  apostolicce  prresul  ....  sit  immunis  et  liber,  et  Christianae 
plebi,  sine  aliqua  de  objectis  oblatione,  in  omnibus  ecclesiis  suis  ad  jus 
sedis  suae  pertinentibus  tradat  divina  mysteria ;  qui  a  cum  ob  im- 
pugnatorum  suorum  impetitionem  propter  superius  designatas  causa 
obligari  non  potuisse  cognovimus.  Unde  secundum  principalia 
pnecepta,  quae  nostrae  hoc  tribuunt  potestati,  ei  quidquid  ecclesiastic! 
intra  sacram  urbem  Romam  vel  foris  juris  est  reformamus,  totamque 
causam  Dei  judicio  reservantes,  universes  hortamur  ut  sacram 
communionem,  sicut  res  postulat,  ab  eo  percipiant."  The  assertion 
of  authority  over  the  Pope,  the  exercise  of  that  authority  in  the  form 
of  a  synodical  decree,  and  the  subject-matter  of  the  decree  itself,  are 
all  too  clear  and  explicit  to  permit  of  being  explained  away  or  even 
effectively  minimised. 


no  THE   PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    III. 

then  recognised  as  valid  in  Western  Christendom,  there 
should  not  be  a  large  mass  of  evidence  forthcoming  on 
their  behalf.  These  Councils  were  as  follows  : — In  France, 
Agde,  Aries  (two) ;  Autun,  Auvergne  (two) ;  Auxerre, 
Carpentras,  Epaon,  Lyons  (three);  Macon  (three);  Nar- 
bonne,  Orange  (two);  Orleans  (five);  Paris  (three);  Tours; 
and  Vaison ;  in  Spain,  Barcelona  (two) ;  Braga  (two) ; 
Gerona,  Huesca,  Lerida,  Saragossa,  Seville,  Tarragona, 
Toledo  (three) ;  Valencia  (two) ;  total,  forty-three  synods. 
In  all  these  there  is  but  one  reference,  direct  or  indirect, 
to  the  Pope  in  any  capacity,  and  that  is  the  fourth  Canon 
of  Vaison  II.  in  529  (at  which  only  twelve  bishops  were 
present),  enjoining  the  commemoration  of  the  Pope's  name, 
to  be  prayed  for  at  every  Mass  ;  which  incidentally  proves 
that  it  was  not  inserted  in  the  Galilean  Missal  till  then, 
but  was  absent,  as  in  all  the  oldest  Liturgies  except  the  local 
Roman  one,  so  that  even  the  bare  Primacy  was  not  formally 
recognised  in  Gaul  at  that  time,  for  the  local  metropolitan's 
name  must  have  occupied  the  first  place  of  commemoration 
at  Mass.  There  are  many  Canons,  moreover,  practically 
inconsistent  with  the  latter  system,  of  which  a  single 
example  will  suffice — the  first  Canon  of  the  Second 
Council  of  Lyons  in  567,  which  decrees  that  if  a  dispute 
arise  between  two  bishops  of  the  same  province,  the 
matter  is  to  be  settled  by  their  metropolitan  and  his  com- 
provincials ;  but  if  the  disputants  should  be  of  different 
provinces,  then  the  two  metropolitans  are  jointly  to  try 
the  case,  and  their  sentence  is  to  be  final.  The  import-' 
ance  of  this  Canon  is  in  showing  that  the  great  province 
of  Lyons,  the  principal  see  of  all  Gaul,  did  not  then  accept 
or  recognise  the  Canons  of  Sardica,  on  which  the  whole 
system  of  Papal  appeals  is  based,  for  there  is  no  provision 
for  any  ulterior  appeal. 

And  the  object  for  which  the  Second  Council  of  Orange 
was  convoked  in  529  was  to  examine  and  ratify  certain 
articles  and  capitula  on  the  subject  of  Semi-Pelagianism, 
which  Pope  Felix  IV.  had  compiled  at  the  request  of  St. 
Caesarius  of  Aries  to  aid  him  in  some  local  controversies 


CHAP.    III.]    LEGAL  EVIDENCE  OF  CONCILIAR  DECREES.       Ill 

on  the  subject.  This  fact  shows  that  the  Papal  origin  and 
sanction  of  the  document  in  question  did  not  suffice  to  give 
it  currency  and  authority  in  the  Churches  of  Gaul.  More- 
over, in  its  decree  the  Council  does  not  so  much  as  name  the 
Pope  as  author  or  sanctioner  of  the  articles  in  question, 
but  recommends  them  solely  as  expressing  the  opinions  of 
the  "  ancient  Fathers,"  since  they  were,  in  fact,  mainly 
taken  from  St.  Augustine. 

The  fifth  General  Council  at  Constantinople  in  553 
supplies  an  important  piece  of  evidence.  The  Council 
had  before  it  a  proposal  to  condemn,  in  confirmation  of  an 
edict  of  Justinian  I.  in  547,  certain  writings  of  Theodore 
of  Mopsuestia,  Theodoret  of  Cyrus,  and  Ibas  of  Edessa, 
technically  known  as  the  "Three  Chapters."  Pope 
Vigilius  at  first  had  refused  assent  to  the  edict  of  547,  and 
even  declined  to  communicate  with  the  bishops  who  had 
signed  it.  But  in  551  he  issued  a  treatise  entitled 
Judicatum^  in  which  he  recanted  this  first  opinion,  and  con- 
demned the  Three  Chapters  himself  in  a  Synod  of  seventy 
Bishops.  Hereupon,  he  was  promptly  excommunicated 
by  Facundus,  Pontianus,  and  other  African  bishops,  and 
by  the  Bishops  of  Illyricum,  as  well  as  strongly  censured 
by  Rusticus  and  Sebastian,  deacons  of  his  own  Roman 
Church,  while  even  the  Emperor  was  almost  equally  angry 
because  of  a  saving  clause  in  \.\\t  Judicatu?n,  limiting  its 
censures  to  what  was  disallowed  by  the  Council  of  Chalce- 
don.  While  the  Council  of  Constantinople  was  debating 
the  "  Three  Chapters,"  the  Pope  changed  his  mind  again, 
and  sent  a  formal  decree  or  "  constitutwn  "  to  be  read  in 
the  session,  wherein,  although  rejecting  the  tenets  of  Theo- 
dore of  Mopsuestia,  he  revoked  his  censure  of  Theodoret 
and  Ibas,  forbade  the  condemnation  of  the  Three  Chapters, 
and  denied  the  lawfulness  of  anathematizing  the  dead. 
But  the  Council  refused  to  permit  this  letter  to  be  so  much 
as  read,  proceeded  to  condemn  the  Three  Chapters  in 
despite  of  the  Pope's  advocacy,  and  struck  his  name  out  of  the 
diptychs  or  registers  of  the  Church — a  virtual  act  of  excom- 
munication— as  a  punishment  for  his  contumacy.     When 


112  THE    PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    Ill, 

its  decrees  were  issued,  Vigilius  recanted  once  more,  and, 
pleading  the  Retractations  of  St.  Augustine  as  a  precedent, 
approved  the  Council,  and  condemned  the  Three  Chapters 
afresh,  in  which  he  was  followed  by  his  successors  Pelagius 
I.,  John  III.,  Benedict  I.,  Pelagius  II.,  and  St.  Gregory  the 
Great.  Whether  we  look  to  the  contemptuous  disregard 
of  the  Pope  exhibited  by  the  CEcumenical  Council,  or  to 
his  own  helpless  vacillations  on  the  doctrinal  issue  at  stake, 
the  result  is  equally  unfavourable  to  the  Petrine  claims. 

Ten  Roman  Councils  were  held  in  the  sixth  century.  Only 
two  are  relevant  besides  the  Synodus  Palmaris  already 
cited.  In  531  a  Synod  was  held  to  discuss  the  appeal  of 
Stephen  of  Larissa,  Metropolitan  of  Thessaly,  who  had 
been  deposed  by  Epiphanius  of  Constantinople.  It  is  not 
known  how  the  matter  ended,  but  the  plea  set  up  by 
Stephen  was  that  his  see  belonged  in  fact  to  the  Roman 
Patriarchate,  and  not  to  that  of  Constantinople,  and  so  the 
question  was  purely  one  of  ecclesiastical  geography,  per- 
taining to  an  old  dispute  as  to  the  whole  vast  province  of 
Eastern  Illyricum,  claimed  by  the  Popes  from  Damasus 
onward  as  part  of  their  jurisdiction,  and  placed  under  a 
Papal  Vicar,  a  new  office,  marking  a  first  Roman  encroach- 
ment. In  595,  John  of  Chalcedon,  a  priest  who  had 
appealed  from  the  Patriarch  of  Constantinople,  was  ab- 
solved. 

The  seventh  century  also  had  several  Councils  held  in 
Gaul  and  Spain  during  its  course,  namely,  Autun,  Chalons- 
sur-Saone,  Paris,  Rheims,  and  Rouen,  in  the  former 
country;  Braga,  Egara,  Seville,  Toledo  (fourteen),  in  the 
latter :  a  total  of  twenty-two.  All  they  yield  on  inquiry 
are — (i)  that  the  fifth  Council  of  Paris,  in  615,  decrees 
that  on  the  death  of  any  bishop,  the  vacancy  shall  be  filled 
up  by  the  election  of  a  fit  person  by  the  clergy  and  laity  of 
the  diocese,  to  be  confirmed  by  the  metropolitan  and  his 
com  provincials ;  and  enacts  that  any  other  method  of 
appointment  shall,  in  accordance  with  the  ancient  Canons, 
be  absolutely  void,  even  if  the  person  be  consecrated. 
There  is  no  provision  for  appeal  to  Rome,  much  less  for  giving 


CHAP    III.]    LEGAL  EVIDENCE  OF  CONCILIAR  DECREES.         II3 

the  Pope  any  voice  in  the  election.  (2.)  A  similar  but  briefer 
Canon  was  passed  at  Chalons  in  649.  (3.)  The  second  Coun- 
cil of  Seville,  in  618,  rules  that  in  case  of  a  dispute  between 
bishops  as  to  their  jurisdiction  over  parishes  and  churches, 
thirty  years'  prescription  is  to  confer  full  rights,  "  for  this 
both  the  edicts  and  secular  princes  enjoin  and  the  authority 
of  Roman  prelates  has  decreed."  (4.)  The  third  Canon  of  the 
fourth  CouncilofToledo,  in  633, enacts  thatageneral[national] 
Council  of  Spain  shall  be  held  yearly,  if  any  question  of  the  faith 
arise,  or  any  matter  affecting  the  Church  at  large;  but  that  if 
nothing  of  such  importance  be  forthcoming,  it  shall  suffice 
to  hold  the  several  provincial  synods  independently,  when- 
ever the  metropolitans  shall  appoint,  and  the  judgments  of 
those  synods,  whether  general  or  provincial,  shall  be  bind- 
ing and  final,  for  all  causes  brought  before  them.  (5.)  The 
sixth  Canon  of  this  same  Council,  in  regulating  the  con- 
troversy as  to  trine  and  single  immersion  in  baptism,  quotes 
the  opinion  of  St.  Gregory  the  Great  in  these  terms  :  "  There- 
fore Gregory  of  blessed  memory.  Pontiff  of  the  Roman 
Church,  who  not  merely  adorned  the  regions  of  Italy,  but 
taught  the  Churches  also  with  his  doctrine,  when  the  most 
holy  Bishop  Leander  inquired  of  him  which  practice  should 
be  followed  in  this  diversity  in  Spain,  writes  back  to  him, 
saying  thus  amongst  other  matters : "  QHere  follows  a 
quotation,  declaring  that  both  usages  are  valid  and  per- 
missible.] "  Wherefore  «...  since  an  opinion  is 
given  by  so  great  a  man  [tanto  vtro]  that  both  are  right  and 
to  be  accounted  blameless  in  the  Church  of  God  .  .  . 
let  us  hold  to  single  baptism."  Here  it  is  the  personal 
eminence  of  St.  Gregory  as  a  private  doctor,  not  his  official 
character  as  Pope,  which  is  cited  as  weighty  in  deciding 
the  controversy.  (6.)  The  fourteenth  Council  of  Toledo, 
in  684,  assembled  to  give  local  confirmation  in  Spain  to  the 
decrees  of  Constantinople  against  the  Apollinarians  and 
Monothelites,  having  been  "  invited  "  by  Pope  Leo  II.  to 
do  so,  and  the  Council  explained  that  there  were  two  reasons 
for  not  having  earlier  complied  with  the  invitation,  namely, 
that  a  General  Council  of  Spain  had  been  held  just  before 

I 


114  THE   PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  III. 

the  Pope's  letter  arrived,  and  had  been  dissolved,  while  the 
severity  of  an  unusually  cold  and  stormy  winter  made  it 
highly  inconvenient  to  reassemble,  but  that  the  decrees  had 
been  carefully  studied  in  each  diocese,  and  approved,  so 
that  now  they  were  ready  to  content  the  Pope,  by  giving 
clear  proof  of  their  orthodoxy  in  affirmatory  Canons. 
There  is  not  a  word  in  their  language  which  implies  any 
uneasiness  lest  they  should  seem  insufficiently  deferential 
to  the  Pope,  but  only  lest  their  submission  to  and  agreement 
with  the  (Ecumenical  Council  should  be  doubted  because 
of  the  delay.  A  Council  at  Rome,  under  Pope  Agatho, 
in  678,  decreed  the  reinstatement  of  Wilfrid,  Bishop  of 
York,  who  complained  of  having  been  unjustly  deposed, 
and  of  his  diocese  being  divided  into  three  sees  against  his 
will.  But  the  sentence  was  disregarded  by  the  civil  and 
ecclesiastical  authorities  in  England,  who,  some  years  later, 
actually  renewed  his  deposition,  and  never  retracted  the 
partition  of  his  diocese,  but  even  carved  a  fourth  see  out  of 
it.  This  is  the  sum  of  the  local  conciliar  evidence  furnished 
by  the  seventh  century ;  but  an  incomparably  weightier 
testimony  has  yet  to  be  adduced,  that  of  the  sixth  General 
Council,  the  last  of  the  undisputed  CEcumenical  Synods  of 
the  Church  Catholic. 

That  Council  was  held  in  681  for  the  condemnation  of 
the  Monothelite  heresy,  and  the  legates  of  Pope  Agatho 
took  the  lead  in  calling  for  that  condemnation,  and  in 
vindicating  the  orthodox  Catholic  doctrine,  bringing  with 
them  letters  to  the  Emperor  from  the  Pope  and  a  Council 
of  Western  bishops  who  had  assembled  at  Rome  in  679. 
The  result  was  that  in  the  several  sessions  judgment  was 
pronounced  in  these  terms  : — 

{a.)  Sess.  xiii. — "  It  has  been  demanded  that  sentence  shall  be  pro- 
nounced on  the  epistles  of  Sergius,  Honorhis,  and  Sophronius,  which 
were  read  in  the  preceding  session.  The  Holy  Council  said  :  Ac- 
cording to  the  promise  which  was  made  by  us  to  your  Splendour,  we, 
taking  into  consideration  the  dogmatic  epistles  which  were  written  by 
Sergius,  Patriarch  of  the  Imperial  City,  both  to  Cyrus,  who  was  then 
Bishop  of  Phasis,  and  also  to  Honorius,  Pope  of  Old  Rome,  and 
likewise  the  epistle  in  reply  from  him,  that  is,  Honorius,  to  the  afore* 


CHAP.  III.]     LEGAL  EVIDENCE  OF  CONCILIAR  DECREES.       II5 

said  Sergius,  and  finding  them  to  be  in  all  respects  alien  from  Apo- 
stolic doctrine  and  from  the  definitions  of  the  sacred  synods,  and  of 
all  the  Fathers  of  repute,  but  following  the  false  doctrines  of  the 
heretics,   we  wholly  reject  them,  and   pronounce  tnem  accursed  as 

hurtful  to  souls With  these  we  have  provided  that  HonoriuSy 

7vho  was  Pope  of  Old  Rome,  be  cast  out  of  the  Holy  CatJiolic  Church  of 
God  and  be  anathematized,  because  we  have  found  by  the  writings 
which  he  addresed  to  Sergius,  that  he  followed  his  opinion  in  all 
respects  and  affirmed  his  impious  tenets." 

(b.)  **  Having  examined  the  letters  of  Sergius  of  Constantinople 
to  Cyrus,  and  the  answer  of  Honorius  to  Sergius,  and  having  found 
them  to  be  repugnant  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Apostles,  and  to  the 
opinion  of  all  the  Fathers ;  in  execrating  their  impious  dogmas,  we 
judge  that  their  very  names  ought  to  be  banished  from  the  Holy 
Church  of  God  ;  we  declare  them  to  be  smitten  with  anathema ;  and 
together  with  them,  ive  Judge  that  Honorius,  formerly  Pope  of  Old 
Rotne,  be  anathematized,  since  we  find  in  his  letters  to  Sergius  that  he 
follows  in  all  respects  his  error  anil  authorises  his  impious  doctrijie.'^ 

(r.)  Sess.  xvi. — "Anathema  to  Theodore  the  heretic,  anathema  to 
Sergius  the  heretic,  anathema  to  Cyrus  the  heretic,  anathema  to  Hono- 
rius the  heretic,  anathema  to  Pyrrhus  the  heretic' 

(d.)  Sess.  xvii. — "But  since  there  has  never,  from  the  beginning, 
ceased  to  be  an  inventor  of  evil,  who  found  the  serpent  to  help  him, 
and  thereby  brought  poisoned  death  on  mankind,  and  so  finding 
suitable  tools  for  his  own  purpose, — we  mean  Theodorus  ....  and 
also  Honorius y  who  was  Pope  of  Old  Rome." 

These  decrees  were  signed,  without  any  objection  being 
raised,  by  the  legates  of  Pope  Agatho  and  by  all  the 
hundred  and  sixty-five  bishops  present. 

This  sentence  on  a  Pope  as  a  heretic,  pronounced  by  a 
General  Council,  is  such  a  deadly  blow  to  the  whole  fabric 
of  the  Papal  claims,  as  negativing  at  once  the  doctrines  of 
Papal  supremacy  and  infallibility,  that  the  most  desperate 
efforts  have  been  made  by  Roman  controversialists  to  elude 
or  minimise  its  evidence.  It  is  unnecessary  to  set  down 
all  these  shifts  and  evasions  here,  it  will  suffice  to  name 
such  of  them  as  would  be  to  the  point  if  they  could  be 
proved. 

1 .  Baronius  alleges  that  the  insertion  of  Honorius's  name 
is  an  interpolation  and  forgery. 

2.  Honorius  was  really  orthodox,  and  was  condemned  by 
the  Council  in  error. 

I  2 


Il6  THE    PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    III. 

3.  Honorius  was  condemned  only  in  his  capacity  as  a 
private  doctor,  as  he  did  not  put  forth  his  letter  to  Sergius 
in  his  official*  capacity,  nor  intend  to  teach  ex  cathedra 
by  it. 

4.  The  fault  for  which  Honorius  was  condemned  was 
not  heresy,  but  apathetic  negligence  in  suppressing  the 
heresy  of  others. 

It  may  be  observed,  in  the  first  place,  that  these  four 
excuses  are  not  supplementary  to  each  other,  so  as  to  be 
separate  pleas  or  parts  which  can  be  combined  into  one 
successful  defence.  Each  of  them  excludes  the  other  three, 
and  is  incompatible  with  them,  so  that  the  controversialist 
who  selects  any  one  of  them  in  defence  of  Honorius  must 
deny  the  truth  of  the  three  remaining  pleas,  and  if  he 
attempt  to  urge  more  than  one  of  them  simultaneously,  he 
must  contradict  himself.  Thus,  it  is  plainly  inconsistent 
to  declare  the  decrees  of  the  Council  to  h^  forged,  and  also  to 
■say  that,  although  gefiuine,  they  were  passed  in  error  on  the 
point  of  the  Pope's  orthodoxy.  One  of  these  two  pleas 
might  be  true  by  itself,  but  they  cannot  both  be  true  at  the 
same  time.     As  a  fact,  the  four  pleas  are  all  false. 

Not  only  was  there  no  suspicion  or  whisper  of  interpola- 
tion in  the  Acts  or  decrees  of  the  Council  during  the  nine 
•hundred  years  which  elapsed  between  the  publication  of  its 
decrees  in  681,  and  that  of  the  first  volume  of  the  Ecclesias- 
iical  History  of  Baronius  in  1588  ;  but  the  most  explicit  and 
authoritative  acceptance  of  those  decrees  by  the  local 
Church  of  Rome  itself  is  attested  by  irrefragable  docu- 
mentary proof.  First,  the  anathema  against  Honorius  does 
not  rest  for  evidence  on  the  Acts  of  the  Council  only. 
It  is  expressly  repeated  in  the  letter  of  the  Council  to  the 
Emperor,  and  in  its  other  letter  to  Pope  Agatho,  and  all 
these  three  documents  were  duly  signed  by  the  Papal 
legates.  Next,  Pope  Leo  II.,  Agatho's  successor,  wrote  to 
the  Emperor,  on  May  7,  dZT,-,  a  formal  letter,  in  which  he 
says,  amidst  much  else  :  "  We  likewise  anatheinatize  the 
inventors  of  the  new  error ;  that  is,  Theodore  .  .  .  Ser- 
gius .  .  .  and    also    Honorius,   who    did    not  keep   this 


CHAP.  III.]     LEGAL  EVIDENCE  OF  CONCILIAR  DECREES.       II  7 

Apostolic  Church  pure  with  doctrine  of  Apostolic  tradition, 
but  endeavoured  to  overthrow  the  unspotted  faith  by  his 
profane  betrayal."  Thirdly,  this  same  Pope  renewed  this 
anathema  in  his  letter  to  the  Spanish  bishops,  inviting  them 
to  accept  synodically  the  decrees  of  the  Council,  in  which 
he  tells  them  that  Honorius  is  damned  to  all  eternity. 
Fourthly,  the  two  synods,  at  Nicaea  in  787  and  Constanti- 
nople in  869,  reckoned  by  the  Latin  Church  as  the  seventh 
and  eighth  General  Councils — of  which  the  latter,  held 
against  Photius,  and  entirely  under  Roman  influence,  is 
rejected  by  the  Greeks — renew  the  condemnation  of 
Honorius.  The  following  citation  of  the  Acts  of  this 
pseudo-Gicumenical  Council  of  Constantinople  is  from  the 
account  by  Anastasius  Bibliothecarius,  a  Roman  historian 
and  divine,  who  was  present  during  the  sessions  :  "  We 
anathematize,  moreover,  Theodore,  who  was  Bishop  of 
Pharan,  and  Sergius,  and  Pyrrhus,  and  Paul,  and  Peter, 
impious  bishops  of  the  Church  of  Constantinople ;  and 
together  with  them  Honorius  of  Rome,  together  with  Cyrus 
of  Alexandria ;  and  also  Macarius  of  Antioch,  and  his 
disciple  Stephen,  who,  following  the  doctrines  of  Apollinaris 
of  evil  fame,  and  also  of  Eutyches  and  Severus,  the  impious 
heresiarchs,  taught  that  the  Flesh  of  God  was  animated  by 
a  rational  and  intellectual  soul  devoid  of  operation  and 
will,  with  mutilated  senses,  and  in  both  without  reasoning 
faculty."  Fifthly,  a  formal  Profession  of  Faith,  to  be  made 
by  each  Pope  at  his  coronation,  was  inserted  in  the  Liber 
Diurnus,  itself  drawn  up,  as  is  believed,  by  Pope  Gregory 
n.,  one  clause  of  which,  in  condemnation  of  heresies, 
mentions  Honorius  by  name,  along  with  Sergius,  Pyrrhus, 
and  others,  with  the  special  remark  that  he  "added  fuel 
{fomentum)  to  their  corrupt  statements."  Sixthly,  in  the 
office  of  the  Roman  Breviary  for  June  28,  the  feast  of  St. 
Leo  n.,  the  name  of  Pope  Honorius  was  included  for 
some  centuries  in  the  lessons  of  the  second  nocturn, 
amongst  those  Monothelite  heretics  who  were  condemned 
by  the  sixth  General  Council.  The  lesson  has  been 
falsified,  ever  since   about   the   middle  of  the   sixteenth 


Il8  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  III. 

century,  by  omitting  Honorius's  name ;  but  the  older 
editions,  when  not  actually  mutilated  with  a  knife,  exhibit 
it  still. ^  Seventhly,  a  letter  of  Pope  Hadrian  II.,  formally 
drafted  in  a  Council  at  Rome  in  868,  was  read  in  the  so- 
called  eighth  General  Council  of  869,  in  which  he  lays 
down  very  strong  assertions  as  to  the  privileges  of  the 
Roman  See,  stating  that  as  a  rule  no  Pope  can  be  tried  by 
his  inferiors;  that  the  only  ground  on  which  he  may  be 
lawfully  resisted  is  that  of  heresy  ;  and  that  the  posthumous 
condemnation  of  Honorius  by  the  sixth  General  Council 
rests  on  that  ground,  and  must  needs  have  been  preceded 
by  permission  from  the  then  Pope  to  the  assembled 
patriarchs  and  bishops  to  moot  the  question  at  all.  This 
very  claim,  intended  to  exalt  the  privilege  of  Peter,  esta- 
blishes two  facts,  that  in  Pope  Hadrian's  mind  Honorius 
was  really  and  justly  condemned  as  a  heretic,  and  that  the 
previous  assent  of  Pope  Agatho  to  the  condemnation  was 
brought  by  his  legates  to  the  Council.  The  question  of 
the  truth  of  the  charge,  and  of  the  official  character  of  the 
letter  of  Honorius  on  which  it  was  based,  will  be  con- 
sidered when  that  part  of  the  evidence  against  the  Petrine 
claims  is  reached  which  consists  of  acts  of  the  Popes 
themselves ;  but  it  is  not  relevant  here,  since  the  present 
issue  is  limited  to  the  evidence  of  the  Councils.  And 
as  all  the  undisputed  General  Councils  have  been  cited, 
each  of  which  contributes  its  quota  of  testimony  against 
the  alleged  "  privilege  of  Peter,"  while  more  than  one 
hundred  local  ones  in  the  first  seven  centuries,  to  say 
the  least,  fail  to  support  it,  it  will  suffice  to  close  this  part 
of  the  discussion  here ;  but  one  additional  citation,  albeit 
of  minor  importance,  may  not  be  superfluous.  It  is  the  first 
ground  of  objection  raised  by  the  Gallican  Church  in  the 
"  Caroline  Books,"  written  by  order  of  Charlemagne, 
at  the  close  of  the  eighth  century  (790),  against  the 
sanction  of   the   cultus   of  images  by   the   quasi-General 

*^  It  occurs,  for   example,  in  a  Venetian   edition   of    1523   in  the 
writer's  possession,  and  he  has  seen  it  in  one  of  1559. 


CHAP.  III.]     LEGAL  EVIDENCE  OF  CONCILIAR  DECREES.        II9 

Second  Council  of  Nicaea  in  787.  That  ground  was,  that 
this  Council  of  Niccea  was  a  merely  Eastern  synod,  as  no 
Western  bishops  were  present  except  the  Pope  by  his  legates^ 
and  therefore  was  not  oecumenical  nor  binding,  and  the 
Council  of  Frankfort  in  794  rejected  and  condemned  it 
by  Canon  ii.  Moreover,  it  compelled  Pope  Hadrian  I.  to 
retract  his  confirmation  of  the  Nicene  decrees,  and  to 
pronounce  them  heretical.  The  French  and  German 
bishops  held  out  for  at  least  five  centuries  before  recog- 
nising this  second  Council  of  Nice. 

Later  synods,  exclusively  Western  (except  that  of  Ferrara- 
Florence,  to  be  considered  subsequently),  obviously  have 
not  the  same  value  as  evidence  of  Catholic  consent ;  and 
noany  of  them,  held  under  directly  Roman  influence,  and 
even  in  the  august  city  itself,  might  be  readily  quoted  as 
showing  how  the  Petrine  claims  were  gradually  advanced, 
where  little  resistance  was  likely,  or  even  possible.  But 
this  very  fact  increases  the  weight  of  any  adverse  testimony 
discoverable  in  them,  and-  such  testimony  is  very  far  indeed 
from  being  absent.  It  will  suffice  to  quote  the  decisions  of 
five  of  the  most  important — those  of  Rome  in  963  ;  of  Sutri 
in  1046;  of  Pisa  in  1409;  of  Constance  in  1415;  and  of 
Basle,  which  sat  from  1431  to  1443.  The  first  of  these 
deposed  Pope  John  XII.  for  simony,  adultery,  and  other 
grievous  crimes;  the  second,  convened  to  examine  the  con- 
flicting claims  of  three  rival  Popes — Benedict  IX.,  Silvester 
III.,  and  Gregory  VI. — condemned  Silvester  as  an  impostor, 
degraded  him  from  holy  orders,  imprisoned  him  for  life, 
and  compelled  the  abdication  of  the  two  others,  one  of 
whom  must  have  been  the  lawful  claimant.  The  words 
used  of  Benedict  by  Pope  Victor  III.  are  that  he,  being 
Ronftn  Pontiff",  gave  judgment  for  his  own  deposition  {ipse^ 
Romanus  Fonttfex,  se  judicaverit  depone7idu?}i)  ;  and  of 
Gregory  VI.,  almost  similarly,  "  I  judge  that  I  am  to  be 
removed  from  the  Roman  bishopric  "  {a  Rotfiano  episcopatu 
judico  me  stibmoveridum).  These  turns  of  phrase  are  im- 
portant, as  they  exclude  the  plea  of  voluntary  resignation, 
and  show  that  submission  to  the  sentence  of  the  Council, 


120  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  lU, 

in  order  to  mitigate  its  severity,  is  the  truest  version  of  the 
transaction. 

Neither  of  these  Councils  professed  to  be  Qi^cumenical. 
They  were  no  more  than  local  Italian  Synods,  and  yet  their 
depositions  of  the  Popes  in  question  have  always  been 
counted  valid. 

The  Council  of  Pisa,  one  of  the  largest  ever  assembled, 
met  to  adjudicate  upon  the  conflicting  claims  of  the  rival 
Popes,  Gregory  XII.  and  Benedict  XIII.,  one  of  whom,  at 
least,  must  have  been  the  true  Pontiff.  It  summoned  them 
to  appear  before  it,  convoked  as  it  was  under  the  authority 
of  the  two  parties  in  the  College  of  Cardinals  which  severally 
adhered  to  each  of  the  claimants  ;  and  after  declaring  them 
contumacious  for  absence  and  non-representation  by  proc- 
tors, formally  withdrew  from  the  recognition  of  both  or 
either  of  them,  declared  in  its  fourteenth  session  that  it,  as 
representing  the  Catholic  Church,  had  right  of  cognisance 
in  the  matter,  and  jurisdiction,  as  the  highest  authority  on 
earth;  and  formally  deposed,  condemned,  and  excom- 
municated both  Benedict  XIII.  and  Gregory  XII.,  as 
schismatics,  heretics,  and  perjurers,  electing  in  their  stead 
Peter  of  Candia,  Archbishop  of  Milan,  under  the  title  of 
Alexander  V.,  who  was  duly  crowned. 

The  Council  of  Constance  had  before  it  the  renewed 
claims  of  the  two  Popes  deposed  at  Pisa  (for  the  validity 
of  that  Council's  proceedings  was  contested  then  and  since), 
and  also  those  of  the  actually  reigning  Pope,  Balthasar 
Cossa,  Pope  John  XXIIL,  who  presided  at  its  opening. 
His  notorious  immorality  caused  several  heavy  indictments 
to  be  brought  against  him  before  the  Synod,  which,  in  its 
fourth  session,  declared  itself  an  CEcumenical  Council, 
deriving  its  authority  directly  from  Christ  Himseif — a 
power  which  every  one,  including  the  Pope,  was  bound  to 
obey  in  all  matters  regarding  the  Faith,  the  removal  of 
schism,  and  the  reformation  of  the  Church  in  its  head  and 
members.  It  further  pronounced  null  and  void  any  cen- 
sures or  processes  which  the  Pope  might  direct  against  the 
members  of  the  Council.      In  the  twelfth  session  John 


CHAP.  III.]     LEGAL  EVIDENCE  OF  CONCILIAR  DECREES.       121 

XXIII.  was  finally  deposed,  and  declared  incapable  of 
re-election;  while  the  counts  upon  which  he  was  con- 
demned were  of  such  a  scandalous  nature  that  they  were  not 
published  along  with  the  sentence.  He  is  described  in  the 
secret  articles  as  "an  obstinate  heretic"  and  "a  notorious 
simoniac";  and  in  the  twelfth  session  as  "a  devil  incar- 
nate." ^  The  claims  of  Benedict  and  Gregory  were  dis- 
allowed, and  in  the  forty-first  session  Cardinal  Colonna 
was  elected  Pope  under  the  title  of  Martin  V. 

The  Council  of  Basle  held  forty-five  sessions.  Of  these 
the  first  twenty-five  were  received  by  the  Galilean  Church, 
and,  indeed,  by  the  entire  West,  for  they  were  acknow- 
ledged by  Pope  Eugenius  IV.,  and  his  legates  continued 
to  take  part  in  them;  but  the  whole  are  now  rejected 
by  the  Ultramontane  school.  Of  course  it  has  no  Eastern 
recognition  whatever.  Its  value  for  the  present  inquiry, 
therefore,  must  not  rest  so  much  on  its  disputed  claims, 
as  on  its  historical  record  of  a  great  body  of  eccle- 
siastical opinion  in  the  fifteenth  century ;  since,  as  Cardinal 
Manning  notes,  when  quoting  it  to  support  the  dogma  of 
the  Immaculate  Conception : — "And  if  the  Council  of  Basle 
be  not  general,  yet  it  represents  the  mind  of  the  Episcopate 
of  the  Universal  Church."  —  (^Sermons  on  Ecd.  Subjects^ 
p.  129.  Duffy,  1863.)  It  was  convoked  by  Martin  V.,  who 
died  just  after  its  meeting,  and  it  came,  almost  at  once,  into 
conflict  with  his  successor,  Eugenius  IV.  Amongst  the 
decrees  in  the  acknowledged  sessions  are  the  reiteration  of 
the  claim  of  the  Council  of  Constance  to  be  supreme  over 
all  persons,  including  the  Pope ;  that  if  the  Pope  disobey  it, 
or  any  other  General  Council,  he  is  to  be  put  to  penance ; 
that  General  Councils  are  alone  infallible,  because  they 
are  the  Church  itself,  whereas  the  Pope,  though  the  chief 
minister  of  the  Church,  is  not  above  the  whole  mystical 
body,  since  that  body  cannot  err  in  matters  of  faith, 
whereas  experience  teaches  that  the  Pope  can  so  err  ;  that 
the  Church,  as  the  mystical  body,  has  several  times  de- 

*  Von  der  Hardt.  Magn.  Cone.  Constant. ^  pars  II. 


122  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  III. 

posed  Popes  when  convicted  of  error  in  matters  of  faith, 
whereas  no  Pope  has  ever  pretended  to  excommunicate 
the  Church  as  a  body ;  that  the  Council  warned  and 
required  Pope  P^ugenius  IV.  to  revoke  his  decree  for  its 
dissolution,  and  to  appear  before  it  in  person  or  by  proxy 
within  three  months  ;  that  the  Pope  should  not  be  per- 
mitted to  create  any  cardinals  during  the  sitting  of  the 
Council,  and  that  any  such  creation  should  be  null  and 
void ;  that  no  person  should  be  excused  from  attending 
the  Council  on  the  plea  of  any  oath  or  promise  made  to 
the  Pope,  all  such  pledges  being  declared  not  binding; 
that  the  claim  put  forward  by  the  Bishop  of  Tarentum  that 
the  Pope  alone  possesses  the  right  of  appointing  the  time, 
place,  and  celebration  of  Councils,  could  not  be  sustained, 
since,  if  the  Pope  attempted  to  dissolve  a  lawfully  con- 
voked Council,  he  would  thereby  become  an  abetter  and 
renewer  of  schism ;  that  if  any  Pope  neglected  to  call  a 
Council  once  in  ten  years,  as  decreed  at  Constance,  the 
right  to  do  so  would  devolve  on  the  bishops,  without  any 
obligation  to  ask  his  permission  ;  that  the  legates  whom 
Pope  Eugenius  was  willing  to  send  in  1433  to  preside  over 
the  Council  in  his  name  be  refused  admission,  because 
claiming  powers  inconsistent  with  his  own  ;  that  he  be 
required  to  revoke  within  sixty  days  his  plan  for  trans- 
ferring the  Council  from  Basle^  upon  pain  of  being  pro- 
nounced contumacious  ;  and  that  his  right  of  reservation 
and  of  reversion  to  ecclesiastical  preferments  be  restricted 
to  the  local  Roman  diocese  and  its  immediate  dependencies. 
All  these  decrees  were  made  within  the  twenty-five  acknow- 
ledged and  received  sessions.  Amongst  those  made  in  the 
latter  and  disputed  sessions  are,  one  directing  that  all  causes 
ecclesiastical  should  be  decided  on  the  spot,  and  that  no 
appeal  to  the  Pope,  to  the  exclusion  of  the  Ordinary,  should 
be. allowed ;  that  Pope  Eugenius  be  pronounced  contuma- 
cious, be  suspended  from  his  office,  and  all  his  acts  be 
accounted  null  and  void ;  that  it  is  a  Catholic  verity  that  a 
General  Council  has  authority  over  the  Pope  as  well  as 
over  all  others ;  that,  once  lawfully  convoked,  it  cannot  be 


CHAP.  III.]    LEGAL  EVIDENCE  OF  CONCILIAR  DECREES.         1 23 

dissolved,  transferred,  or  prorogued  by  the  Pope's  authority 
against  its  consent,  and  that  whoso  resists  these  verities  is 
to  be  regarded  as  a  heretic;  while  in  1439  the  Council 
declared  Eugenius  IV.  deposed,  and  elected  Amadeus, 
Duke  of  Savoy,  Pope  as  Felix  V.,  but  this  choice  was  not 
universally  nor  favourably  recognised. 

The  most  important  facts  in  the  history  of  these  later 
Councils  are  the  depositions  of  Popes  effected  at  Pisa  and 
Constance,  with  the  elections  of  Alexander  V.  and  Martin 
V.  in  the  room  of  the  deprived  Pontiffs.  This  wa^s,  in 
fact,  a  revolution  which  for  a  time  overthrew  the  autocratic 
Papacy  and  turned  it  into  a  constitutional  government, 
with  the  supreme  power  transferred  from  the  Pope  to  the 
whole  body  of  the  Church.  But  the  speedy  abeyance  into 
which  the  law  enacted  at  Constance  for  the  periodical 
assemblage  of  councils  fell  enabled  the  Popes  to  recover 
their  lost  ground,  and  revive  their  supremacy. 

It  is  obvious  that  if  the  "  privilege  of  Peter,"  as  affirmed 
in  the  Vatican  Council,  be  a  divinely  revealed  verity,  and 
the  Pope  be  in  truth  the  Head  of  the  Church,  his  inferiors 
could  not  possibly  sit  in  judgment  upon  him,  nor  could 
the  body,  without  committing  suicide,  cut  off  its  own 
head.  Therefore,  if  the  attitude  taken  up  by  the 
Councils  were  heterodox  and  unjustifiable,  we  should  find 
their  nominees  to  the  Papacy  rejected  as  pretenders, 
schismatics,  and  heretics,  and  their  acts  disallowed  as 
null  and  void. 

Precisely  so  in  English  history,  the  whole  Parliamentary 
annals  of  England  under  the  Commonwealth  are  now  a 
legal  blank.  The  trial  and  condemnation  of  Charles  I.  are 
regarded  as  illegally  done ;  the  reign  of  Oliver  Cromwell, 
politically  important  as  it  was,  and  the  statutes  of  his 
Parliaments,  many  of  them  wise  and  salutary,  and  antici- 
patory (as  in  the  union  of  Scotland  and  Ireland  into  one 
realm  with  England)  of  much  later  legislation,  are  simply 
ignored ;  the  regnal  years  of  Charles  II.  are  counted  from 
the  day  of  his  father's  execution :  and  no  Acts  of  Parlia- 
ment nor  decisions  of  the  law-courts  between  1641  and 


124  THE    PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  Ill, 

t66o  can  be  cited  as  of  authority,  or  as  having  the  smallest 
legal  validity.  But  no  such  disavowal  of  Pisa  and  Constance 
exists  in  ecclesiastical  history,  and  the  claims  of  Alexander 
V.  and  Martin  V.  to  be  true  Pontiffs  and  successors  of 
St.  Peter  have  never  been  disputed ;  albeit  their  title  de- 
pends wholly  on  the  validity  of  the  deposition  of  their 
predecessors,  which  created  the  vacancies  in  their  favour. 
Had  there  been  any  such  collapse  of  the  opposition  at 
Pisa  and  Constance  as  that  which  left  Eugenius  IV.  ulti- 
mately victor  over  the  Council  of  Basle,  we  should  have 
merely  proof  that  modern  Ultramontanism  was  not  then 
universally  received,  but  none  that  it  was  not  in  the  right, 
and  entitled  to  be  so  received;  but  the  triumph  of  Pisa 
and  Constance  over  Papal  resistance  is  decisive  of  the 
controversy,  and  refutes  the  Vatican  decrees  of  1870. 


CHAP.  IV.]    LEGAL  EVIDENCE  OF  ACTS,  CONCILIAR,  ETC.      1 25 


CHAPTER   IV. 

LEGAL   EVIDENCE    OF   ACTS,    CONCILIAR,    PAPAL,    AND 
PATRISTIC. 

Having  established  the  thesis  that  the  evidence  of  Holy 
Scripture,  of  the  ancient  Liturgies,  of  such  Fathers  as 
furnish  glosses  on  the  three  Gospel  texts  which  are  the  key 
of  the  Ultramontane  position,  and  of  the  decrees  and 
canons  of  a  long  series  of  Councils  down  to  the  begin- 
ning of  the  Reformation,  is  all  adverse  to  the  "  Privilege 
of  Peter ; "  it  is  now  time  to  pass  to  the  next  part  of  the 
inquiry,  namely,  the  incidental  evidence  supplied  by  the 
proceedings  (as  distinguished  from  the  canons)  of  Councils, 
and  by  acts  and  language  of  Popes  themselves,  of  canonized 
Saints,  and  other  eminent  persons,  as  to  the  extent  of 
Papal  authority.  Here,  too,  it  is  to  be  distinctly  remem- 
bered that  any  negative  examples  are  very  much  more  to 
the  point  than  positive  ones  can  be.  This  proposition 
may  strike  persons  unfamiliar  with  the  rules  of  evidence 
as  being  unfair,  for  they  may  naturally  suppose  that  at 
least  equal  weight  should  be  given  to  the  facts  which  make 
in  favour  of  Papal  supremacy,  and  to  those  which  make 
against  it.  That  would  be  perfectly  true  if  the  claim 
made  for  the  Popes  were  simply  that  in  virtue  of  their 
office  they  held  the  most  prominent  position  in  the  early 
Church,  and  often  exercised  a  preponderating  influence  in 
ecclesiastical  affairs.  Occasional  proofs  of  their  being 
unable  to  secure  their  ends  or  enforce  their  authority  would 
establish  no  more  against  this  view  than  the  failure  of 
many  English  Acts  of  Parliament  to  effect  their  object,  or 
to  obtain  popular  recognition  and  obedience,  establishes 
against  the  general  proposition  that  England  is  habitually 


126  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  IV. 

governed  by  laws  enacted  in  and  by  Parliament.  Yet,  in 
truth,  no  dispute  exists  so  far,  and  were  nothing  further 
demanded  on  behalf  of  the  Popes,  the  controversy  would 
die  out  for  want  of  materials.  But  the  claim  is  that  of  an 
original  and  indefeasible  Divine  right  of  direct  sovereignty 
and  jurisdiction,  both  in  matters  of  faith  and  of  discipline, 
exercised  from  the  first  by  the  Popes,  and  acknowledged 
by  the  whole  Catholic  Church.  Every  instance  which 
makes  against  these  pretensions  is  a  flaw  in  the  case,  and 
is  like  a  gap  in  a  pedigree  by  which  right  of  ownership  to 
a  title  and  estate  is  sought  to  be  established.  And  if 
several  such  flaws  and  gaps  be  discoverable,  they  settle 
something  further  :  for  they  not  merely  disprove  the  claim 
of  special  privilege^  but  make  it  impossible  to  sustain  the 
Supremacy  as  matter  of  prescription^  and  as  having  thus 
such  ancient  and  universal  consent  on  its  side  as  to  raise  a 
strong  presumption  in  favour  of  primitive  Christendom 
having  ranked  it  as  a  Church  ordinance,  equally  with 
Infant  Baptism  and  Sunday  observance,  for  which  no 
express  Divine  sanction  is  recorded.  And  any  evidence 
which  tends  to  show  that  the  power  of  the  Roman  See  did, 
in  fact,  become  greater  in  the  lapse  of  time,  and  gradually 
overpower  resistance,  at  once  helps  to  show  its  purely 
human  character.  For  a  divinely  bestowed  authority  is 
always  strongest  at  first,  growing  weaker  in  popular  regard 
as  the  memory  of  the  original  grant  is  weakened,  which 
the  instances  of  Moses  and  of  the  Apostles  sufficiently 
prove ;  whereas  a  human  authority,  continually  reinforced, 
often  tends  to  grow,  as  the  power  of  the  French  kings  grew 
from  Louis  XI.  to  Louis  XIV.,  and  as  the  power  of  the 
House  of  Commons  has  grown  in  England  from  the 
Restoration  to  the  present  day.  It  is  quite  true,  as 
observed  more  than  once  already,  that  the  argument  from 
prescription,  the  opinion  that  the  Papal  power  grew  into 
what  it  now  is,  by  gradual  exercise  and  extension,  from 
natural,  political,  and  ecclesiastical  causes,  and  was  not 
the  same  from  the  beginning,  is  rejected  as  heretical  by 
the  accredited  Roman  doctrine  of  to-day,  which  insists 


CHAP.  IV.]    LEGAL  EVIDENCE  OF  ACTS,  CONCILIAR,  ETC.      1 27 

that  there  is  a  Divine  charter  of  privilege,  and  nothing  less, 
for  the  Papacy.  Nevertheless,  in  practice,  Roman  contro- 
versialists professedly  appeal  to  the  evidence  of  history,  in 
order  to  show  that  in  point  of  fact  the  privilege  of  Peter 
was  acknowledged  and  submitted  to  by  the  Universal 
Church  from  the  first,  and  having  induced  acceptance  of 
this  as  matter  of  history,  then  allege  that  only  a  Divine 
institution  could  have  wielded  such  authority  ;  and  thus 
history  is  the  ladder  by  which  they  climb  up  to  the  heights 
of  Vaticanism.     Let  us  test  a  few  of  the  rungs. 

Second  Centdry. — i.  The  earliest  instance  to  the 
point  is  during  the  pontificate  of  Pope  St.  Anicetus,  who 
sat  from  a.d.  157  to  168. 

At  that  time  St.  Polycarp  of  Smyrna  visited  the  imperial 
city,  and  had  a  discussion  with  the  Pope  on  the  date  for 
the  due  observance  of  Easter,  whether  it  should  be  kept 
on  the  14th  of  Nisan,  regardless  of  the  day  of  the  week, 
or  always  on  a  Sunday :  a  controversy  which,  trivial  as  it 
may  now  perhaps  appear,  was  regarded  as  of  great  import- 
ance by  the  early  Church,  and  was  in  debate  for  some 
centuries.  Eusebius  tells  us,  citing  a  lost  treatise  of  St. 
Irenaeus,  that — 

**when  the  Blessed  Polycarp  was  staying  at  Rome,  in  the  time  of 
Anicetus,  .  .  .  they  were  speedily  at  peace  with  one  another,  not 
caring  to  dispute  on  this  head  :  for  Anicetus  could  not  persuade  (oure, 
vtlcai  idvvaTo)  Polycarp  not  to  observe  that  which  he  had  alway^f 
done  together  with  John,  our  Lord's  disciple,  and  the  other  Apostles, 
with  whom  he  had  been  conversant,  nor  on  the  other  hand  did  Poly- 
carp persuade  (tTrtidt)  Anicetus  to  his  observance,  who  said  that  he 
was  bound  to  maintain  the  custom  of  the  Elders  before  him.  And 
this  being  so,  they  joined  in  communion  with  one  another,  and  in  the 
Church  Anicetus  conceded  to  Polycarp,  doubtless  by  way  of  respect, 
the  celebration  of  the  Eucharist,  and  they  departed  in  peace  from  one 
another ;  the  whole  Church — of  those  who  observed  [the  custom]  and 
of  those  who  observed  not — being  at  peace." — Hi's^.  Eccl.  v.  24. 

Three  things  are  to  be  observed  here :  first,  that  the 
same  word  is  used  of  the  Pope's  endeavour  to  convince 
St.  Polycarp  and  of  St.  Polycarp's  endeavour  to  convince 
the  Pope.      Each   tries  to  persuade^  neither  attempts   to 


128  THE    PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  IV. 

order.  Next,  when  it  comes  to  quoting  authorities,  it  is 
St.  Polycarp  who  urges  Apostolic  precedent  and  example, 
namely,  St.  John  and  the  remaining  Apostles  ;  whereas  St. 
Anicetus  does  not  say  a  word  about  St.  Peter  or  any  special 
privilege  of  his  own  office,  but  alleges  merely  the  custom 
of  the  "  Elders "  (7rpe<TfivTepiov)  who  preceded  himself. 
Thirdly,  instead  of  treating  St.  Polycarp's  opposition  as  a 
ground  of  condemnation,  he  confers  on  him  the  very 
highest  mark  of  distinction  possible  in  that  age  from  one 
Bishop  to  another ;  whereas  his  plain  duty  was,  had  this 
opposition  been  a  piece  of  insubordination  to  a  divinely 
chartered  ruler,  to  check  it  at  once,  lest  the  example  should 
be  contagious,  as  it  indeed  proved  to  be. 

2.  The  second  instance  concerns  the  very  same  dispute, 
only  that  now  Victor  I.  (a.d.  193-202) — a  Pontiff  of  a  very 
different  temper  from  St.  Anicetus,  with  all  the  fierce  in- 
tolerance of  his  African  origin — immediately  on  the  receipt 
of  a  letter  on  behalf  of  the  Asiatic  Churches  to  the  Roman 
Church  from  Polycrates,  Bishop  of  Ephesus,  in  which  was 
alleged  the  precept  and  example  of  St.  Philip,  St.  John, 
St.  Polycarp,  and  several  others  in  favour  of  observing 
Easter  on  the  14th  Nisan,  issued  letters  in  which  he 
declared  all  the  Asiatic  Churches  heterodox  and  excom- 
municate. Hereupon  the  other  Bishops  of  the  Church, 
instead  of  submissively  recognising  the  sentence,  issued 
contrary  orders  to  himself  {avrnrapai^eXevovTo  h~JTa  ourw), 
bidding  him  rather  think  of  peace,  and  of  neigh- 
bourly union  and  charity,  and  used  expressions  "  handling 
him  very  severely"  {irXritcriKojTepov  KadawTo^iviov  rov  'BiKropog). 
Amongst  the  remonstrants  was  St.  Irenseus,  who,  acknow- 
ledging that  Victor  was  only  continuing  the  use  he 
had  received  from  his  predecessors,  writes  thus :  "  And 
those  presbyters  who  governed  before  Soter  that  Church 
over  which  you  now  preside,  I  mean  Anicetus,  and  Pius, 
and  Hyginus,  with  Telesphorus,  and  Xystus,  neither 
observed  it  [the  14th  Nisan]  themselves,  nor  did  they 
permit  their  successors  to  observe  it."  He  then  goes 
on  to  add  that  they  did   not  count  this  a  ground   of 


CHAP.  IV.]    LEGAL  EVIDENCE  OF  ACTS,  CONCILIAR,  ETC.      1 29 

dissension  from  the  Quartodeciman  Churches, ^  but  re- 
mained in  union  with  them,  and  then  cites  m6  anecdote 
of  SS.  Anicetus  and  Polycarp  quoted  above. — (Euseb, 
Hist.  EccL  V.  24.) 

Here  is  to  be  observed  that  obviously  Pope  Victor  did  ^ 
not  cite  St.  Peter's  authority  and  example  as  his  warrant, 
since,  had  he  done  so,  St.  Iren.'sus  would  have  gone  further 
back  than  Anicetus  in  his  disproof.  He  merely  refers  to 
the  five  deceased  Popes  as  presbyters^  using  the  same  word 
which  Anicetus  himself  had  used  thirty  years  earlier  of 
his  predecessors,  and  thus  shows  incidentally  that  the 
claim  of  Apostolic  rank  and  Petrine  privilege  for  the  Popes 
had  not  yet  been  advanced  at  the  beginning  of  the  third 
century,  and  that  the  Pope,  even  on  a  point  of  discipline 
whereon  all  Christendom  subsequently  agreed  with  his 
view,  could  not  get  his  way,  nor  avoid  sharp  censure  for 
trying  to  get  it. 

Third  Century. — 3.  The  next  examples  are  of  much 
l-ess  evidential  value,  as  the  whole  of  their  facts  are  derived 
from  treatises  by  Tertullian  after  his  secession  to  the 
Montanist  sect. 

a.  Either  Pope  Victor  or  his  successor  Zephyrinus  (a.d. 
202  to  219)  issued  a  decree  allowing  adulterers  and  for- 
nicators,  who  had  fulfilled  a  term  of  penance,  to  be 
absolved  and  restored  to  Church  fellowship,  which  excited 
Tertullian's  ire,  as  in  his  mind  contrary  to  the  moral  teaching 
of  Scripture  :  and  he  argues  this  question  at  much  length, 
using  very  harsh  language  to  his  assumed  opponent — the 
upholder  of  the  Papal  decree — whom  he  styles  the 
"  psychic "  or  natural  man.  No  valid  inference  can  be 
drawn  from  Tertullian's  opposition  to  the  Pope  at  the  time, 
as  he  was  then  a  sectary;  but  it  at  least  makes  the  Ultra- 
montane use  of  his  name  as  a  witness  for  the  Supremacy 
manifestly  indefensible.^    The  one  fact  that  we  can  get 

'  That  is,  such  as  celebrated  Easter  on  the  day  corresponding  to  the 
Jewish  14th  Nisan,  and  not  necessarily  on  a  Sunday. 

"  This  use  of  Tertullian  as  a  witness  for  the  Papacy  is  due  to  his 
applying  the  titles  **Pontifex  Maximus"  and  "Bishop  of  Bishops"  to 

K 


130  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  IV. 

from  his  statement,  as  he  does  not  give  us  the  actual  text 
of  the  Papal  decree,  is  that  the  argument  of  its  supporters 
was  that  the  grant  to  St.  Peter  of  the  power  of  the  Keys 
and  of  binding  and  loosing  passed  to  the  whole  Church, 
and  to  all  Churches  akin  to  Peter,  and  thus  that  relaxation 
of  penalties  for  sin  was  competent  to  the  Christian  clergy. 
This  shows  that  no  specific  claim  was  then  made  on  behalf 
of  the  Roman  Church  as  having  greater  authority  than  other 
sees,  otherwise  Tertullian  would  have  argued  that  point : 
whereas  in  fact  the  plea  he  does  urge  is,  as  already  cited 
under  another  heading,  that  St.  Peter's  power  of  the  Keys 
meant  nothing  but  his  taking  the  lead  in  the  admission  of 
Jews  and  Gentiles  into  the  Church,  and  in  relaxing  part, 
while  retaining  another  part,  of  the  Mosaic  Law — actions 
in  themselves  incapable  of  repetition,  and  therefore  con- 
stituting no  transmissible  precedent. — {De  Pudicitia^  \. 
xxi.) 

b.  There  is  one  passage  in  Tertullian  (^Adv.  Praxeam^  i.) 
which  illustrates  the  value  of  appeal  to  the  Pope  in  matters 
of  doctrine.  Tertullian  alleges  that  the  Bishop  of  Rome 
(probably  Victor)  had  acknowledged  the  orthodoxy  and 
mission  of  the  Montanist  prophets,  and  had  admitted 
their  Phrygian  Churches  to  communion;  but  that  the 
heresiarch  Praxeas,  founder  of  the  Patripassians,  had  slan- 
dered them  to  the  Pope,  and  by  insisting  on  the  authority 
of  his  predecessors  in  the  Roman  See  had  persuaded  him 


the  Pope  in  this  same  treatise.  Yet  not  only  does  the  context  show 
that  he  is  speaking  in  fierce  irony,  as  might  be  gathered  from  his 
choosing  a  then  exclusively  pagan  title  of  office  to  describe  the  Pope, 
branding  him  thereby  as  no  better  than  a  heathen ;  but  the  Popes 
themselves  did  not  adopt  the  style  of  Pontifex  Maximus  till  the  episco- 
pate of  Paul  II.  (1464-147 1 ) ;  nor,  indeed,  was  it  dropped  even  by  the 
Christian  Emperors  till  after  the  death  of  Justin  I.  in  527,  since  he  is 
named  Pont.  Max.  in  an  inscription  found  at  Capo  d'Istria  or  Justin- 
opolis,  thus  refuting  the  current  statement  that  Gratian  (t  383)  was 
the  last  Augustus  to  bear  it.  So,  too,  the  title  of  "Bishop  of  Bishops" 
was  not  arrogated  till  the  reign  of  Gregory  VII.  Had  these  two  titles 
really  been  in  use  in  Tertullian's  day,  they  would  not  have  suddenly 
disappeared,  to  be  revived  so  recently. 


CHAP.  IV.]    LEGAL  EVIDENCE  OF  ACTS,  CONCILIAR,  ETC.      I3I 

to  expel  them,  while  suffering  Praxeas  himself  to  propagate 
his  own  far  more  seriously  heretical  tenets.  Either  way  the 
Pope  favoured  heresy,  seemingly  from  sheer  ignorance. 

4.  The  piece  of  evidence  next  in  order  is  one  of  the 
most  remarkable  on  record.  It  is  the  powerful  indictment 
against  Popes  Zephyrinus  and  Callistus  in  the  ninth  book 
of  the  Philosophunieua^  discovered  in  MS.  in  1842,  and 
now  ascribed,  by  the  consent  of  most  scholars  of  repute, 
whether  Catholic  or  Protestant,  to  St.  Hippolytus  the 
martyr.  Bishop  of  Portus  (t  circa  a.d.  250).  It  is  un- 
necessary to  enter  here  into  the  question  of  the  justice  or 
reasonableness  of  his  charges,  which  have  been  disputed 
with  great  learning  and  ingenuity  by  Dr.  Von  Dollinger  in 
his  Hippolytus  und  Kallistus ;  as  the  only  point  at  issue 
now  is  what  kind  of  language  a  Saint  of  the  third  century 
regarded  as  applicable  to  the  Pope,  without  having  thereby 
forfeited  the  respect  and  honour  of  several  Popes  for  at 
least  four  centuries  more,  because  of  having  used  such 
language.  He  accuses  CalHstus,  then,  of  having  abetted 
the  heresy  of  Noetus,  of  having  bribed  Zephyrinus,  a 
covetous  and  ignorant  man,  to  aid  him  in  so  doing,  of 
having  perverted  the  heresiarch  Sabellius  himself,  when 
he  had  been  nearly  turned  from  his  errors  by  the  influence 
of  Hippolytus,  and  when  Callistus  had  it  in  his  power  to 
have  completed  the  conversion;  of  having  swindled  the 
depositors  in  a  bank  he  set  up  with  his  master's  money ; 
of  having  been  sentenced  to  scourging  and  to  penal  servi- 
tude in  the  mines,  and,  after  his  release,  of  having  obtained 
ecclesiastical  office  from  Zephyrinus  by  flattery,  being  still 
a  knave  and  impostor ;  of  having  denied  the  Trinity  and 
taught  Sabellianism,  although  he  excommunicated  Sabel- 
lius ;  and  of  having  set  up  a  school  of  moral  theology, 
heretical  in  its  tendency,  and  contrary  to  the  teaching  of 
the  Catholic  Church. 

There  is  much  ground  for  believing  that  these  terrible 
charges  are  mainly  due  to  overpowering  polemical  bias,  as 
St.  Hippolytus  was  a  stern  rigorist,  and  Callistus  inclined 
to  the  more  gentle  view  of  discipline  which  has  generally 

K  2 


132  THE    PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  IV. 

prevailed  in  the  Church.  But  if  the  Papacy  had  been  re- 
garded then  as  the  pecuHarly  sacred  and  unique  institution 
which  it  is  now  alleged  to  be,  no  one,  and  least  of  all  a 
great  saint  and  theologian,  could  have  dared  to  speak  in 
such  terms  of  two  Popes  of  Rome  without  incurring  the 
severest  penalties  for  treason  and  blasphemy.  And  this 
case  is  considerably  strengthened,  if  Dr.  Von  Bollinger's 
highly  probable  view  be  accepted,  that  Hippolytus  not 
only  withdrew  from  the  communion  of  Callistus,  but  was 
actually  consecrated  as  rival  Pope  of  Rome,  and  yet  met 
with  no  condemnation  from  the  Church. 

5.  St.  Cyprian  (f  258)  is  the  next  in  order  to  be  sum- 
moned as  a  witness,  and  all  the  more  important  one,  since 
^e  is  constantly  cited  by  the  Ultramontanes  as  yielding 
-material  evidence  in  favour  of  the  Petrine  privilege.  Let 
us  cite  first  the  chief  passages  on  which  that  evidence  is 
.alleged  to  rest : — 

{a)  "We  know  that,  giving  a  chart  [^^-a/iofiem']  to  all  who  sail  hence 
'  ]j.o  Rome]  that  they  may  sail  without  any  offence,  we  have  exhorted 
them  to  acknowledge  and  hold  to  the  root  and  womb'  of  the  Catholic 
Church." — £p.  xiv.  ad  Cornelitim  Papain. 

{/>)  "  Cornelius  was  made  Bishop  of  Rome  .  .  .  when  the  place 
of  Fabian,  that  is,  the  place  of  Peter,  and  the  grade  of  the  Sacerdotal 
•Chair,  was  vacant." — £p.  lii.  ad  Atitonianum. 

{c)  "Peter,  however,  on  whom  the  Church  was  built  by  the  same 
'lyOrd,  speaking  singly  for  all,  and  with  the  voice  of  the  Church,  said 
'*  Lord,  to  whom  shall  we  go  ? '  &c.  .  .  .  They  are  bold  enough  to 
-.sail  and  to  bring  letters  from  schismatics  and  heretics  to  the  Chair  of 
Peter  and  to  the  principal  Church,  and  do  not  think  that  they  are 
those  Romans  whose  faith  is  lauded  in  the  preaching  of  the  Apostle, 
to  whom  false  belief  {perfidia)  can  have  no  access." — Ep.  Iv.  ad  Corn. 
Pap. 

{d)  Allegorising  the  martyrdom  of  the  seven  Maccabee  children  with 
their  mother,  St.  Cyprian  says:  "With  the  seven  children  is  clearly 
associated  their  mother  also,  their  origin  and  root,  who  subsequently 
Rjegat  seven  Churches,  she  herself  having  been  first  and  alone  founded 


'  Matrix.  This  word  is  used  by  Tertullian  to  describe  the  older 
Apostolic  Churches  which  sent  out  missionaries  to  found  new  ones, 
and  he  calls  Corinth,  Ephesus,  Antioch,  Philippi,  &c.,  matrices  et 
crigines  Jidei , — {De  Pr a  script.  Hceret.  21.) 


CHAP.  IV.l    LEGAL   EVIDENCE  OF  ACTS,  CONCILIAR,  ETC.      1 33 

on  Peter  by  the  voice  of  the  Lord. " — De  Exhort.  Mdrtyr.  ad  Foriu- 
natum. 

{e)  "Therefore  it  behoves  you  [Pope  Stephen]  to  write  a  very 
copious  letter  to  our  fellow-bishops  appointed  in  Gaul,  not  to  permit 
any  longer  that  Marcian  [Bishop  of  Aries]  .  .  .  shall  insult  our 
assembly.  .  .  .  Let  letters  be  directed  by  you  to  the  province  and 
lo  the  people  abiding  at  Aries,  by  which  Marcian  being  excommuni- 
cated, another  may  be  substituted  in  his  room." — Ep.  Ixvi.  ad 
Stephantim  Papain. 

{/)  "Upon  him  [Peter]  being  one.  He  builds  His  Church,  and 
commits  His  sheep  to  be  fed  .  .  .  and  the  Primacy  is  given  to  Peter, 
that  it  might  be  shown  that  the  Church  is  one  and  the  Chair  one." — 
De  Unitat.  Eccl.  4. 

(^)  "  He  who  opposes  and  resists  the  Church,  who  forsakes  the 
Chair  of  Peter,  upon  which  the  Church  is  built,  can  he  trust  that  he 
is  in  the  Church  ?  " — De  Unitat.  Eccl.  4. 

The  very  force  and  explicitness  of  these  various  passages 
(to  which  several  others  less  strong  individually,  but  of 
cumulative  weight,  could  readily  be  added)  make  them  of 
prime  value  in  the  inquiry,  because  they  prove  for  us,  by  a 
comparison  with  other  passages,  exactly  how  much  they 
practically  meant,  and  we  have  the  still  more  cogent 
evidence  of  what  St.  Cyprian  did,  by  which  to  test  the 
intention  and  scope  of  what  he  said. 

This  is  a  touchstone  which  has  to  be  applied  constantly 
throughout  the  Roman  controversy,  as  it  very  frequently 
happens  that  language  which,  taken  by  itself,  seems  to 
make  very  strongly  for  the  Papal  claims,  is  not  only  much 
diluted  and  qualified  by  other  utterances  of  the  very  same 
persons,  but  is  shown  to  be  the  mere  complimentary  diction 
of  polite  official  etiquette,  not  really  signifying  much  more 
than  the  ending  of  a  modern  letter  with  the  words  "Your 
most  obedient  servant "  does,  which  may  be  used  by  a  peer 
to  a  tradesman  with  whom  he  is  corresponding. 

The  first  thing  to  be  noted,  then,  in  St.  Cyprian's  writings 
is  that  several  of  his  letters,  twelve  in  all,  are  addressed  to 
Popes  Cornelius,  Lucius,  and  Stephen,  and  in  every  one  of 
them  he  writes  on  terms  of  perfect  equality,  never  once 
styling  the  Pope  by  any  title  implying  superiority  to  him- 
self.    His  phrases   are   "brother,"   "colleague,"   "fellow- 


134  ■        THE   PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    IV. 

presbyter,"  "bishop,"  and  "fellow-bishop ;"  while  he  criticizes 
and  advises  as  one  quite  on  a  level  with  his  correspondent. 

And  Pope  Cornelius,  in  turn,  when  twice  writing  to  St. 
Cyprian,  similarly  addresses  him  as  his  brother  and  equal, 
using  no  terms  of  superiority;  whereas  the  clergy  of  the 
Roman  Church,  writing  to  St.  Cyprian  during  a  vacancy  of 
the  Popedom,  call  him  "  most  blessed  and  glorious  Pope  " 
{Ep.  xxxi.);  just  as  St.  Augustine,  nearly  two  centuries 
later,  is  styled  "supreme  pontiff  of  Christ"  and  "most 
blessed  Pope." — {Ep.  Paulini  xxxii.  inter  Epp.  Aug.  ; 
Ep.  St.  Hieron.  Ixxv.  ibid.)  ^ 

Next,  St.  Cyprian  speaks  in  several  places  of  the  equality 
and  independence  of  all  Bishops,  as  also  of  all  Apostles. 
A  few  citations  will  suffice  to  show  this  : — 

(A)  "  For  neither  did  Peter,  whom  the  Lord  chose,  and  upon  whom 
lie  built  His  Church,  when  Paul  disputed  with  him  afterwards  about 
circumcision,  claim  aught  for  himself  insolently,  or  arrogantly  assume 
it,  so  as  to  assert  that  he  held  the  Primacy,  and  had  a  right  to  be 
obeyed  by  his  juniors  and  successors." — Ep.  Ixxi.  ad  Qumtum. 

{{)  "There  is  one  Episcopate,  a  part  of  which  is  held  by  each 
[bishop]  in  joint  \.^X)Mxq.  {cujus  a  singulis  in  solidutn  J>ars  tenetur)." — 
De  Unitat.  Eccl. 

ij)  "No  one  of  us  sets  himself  up  as  Bishop  of  bishops,  or  by 
despotic  intimidation  forces  his  colleagues  to  the  necessity  of  obedience, 
seeing  that  every  bishop,  according  to  the  permission  of  his  liberty  and 
power,  has  his  own  right  of  judgment  {propriutn  arbitrium),  and  can 
no  more  be  judged  by  another  than  he  can  judge  that  other  himself." — 
Speech  at  Cotiftcil  of  Carthage. 

{k)  "  Undoubtedly  the  other  Apostles  also  were  what  Peter  was, 
endowed  with  equal  partnership  both  of  honour  and  of  power ;  but 
the  beginning  is  made  from  unity,  that  the  Church  of  Christ  may  be 
shown  to  be  one." — De  Unitat.  Eccl. 


'  It  will  suihce  to  say  here,  once  for  all,  that  this  mode  of  addressing 
the  Pope  as  a  mere  equal  and  "fellow-minister"  {GvWiirovQyog)  is 
common  in  the  early  Church.  So  St.  Athanasius  speaks  of  Pope 
Damasus  {Ep.  ad  Afr. ) ;  Marcellus  of  Ancyra  to  Pope  Julius  I. 
(St.  Epiph,  Cojit.  Hiir.  72) ;  St.  Cyril  of  Alexandria  to  Celestine  I. ; 
some  Eastern  Bishops  to  Liberius  (Socr.  E.  H.  iv.  12) ;  and  so,  too, 
the  Councils  of  Sardica,  Constantinople,  and  Ephesus,  in  their  letters 
to  Popes  Julius,  Damasus,  and  Celestine  I.  The  word  "brother"  is 
used  by  the  Synods  of  Carthage,  of  Antioch,  and  Aries  I. 


CHAP.  IV.]    LEGAL  EVIDENCE  OF  ACTS,  CONCILIAR,  ETC.     I35 

These  two  sets  of  citations  must  be  taken  as  qualifying 
one  another  seriously,  and,  if  no  further  evidence  existed, 
they  would  have  to  be  treated  as  mutually  destructive,  and 
incapable  of  being  adduced  on  either  side  of  the  con- 
troversy. But  there  is  further  evidence,  and  of  a  very 
cogent  kind.  In  the  first  place,  most  of  the  passages 
which  refer  to  the  Chair  of  St.  Peter  at  Rome,  and  to  the 
duty  of  adherence  thereto,  were  written  in  view  of  the 
Novatian  schism  in  the  local  Church  of  Rome  itself,  which 
began  in  251  by  the  surreptitious  consecration  of  Novatian 
as  Anti-Pope,  who  founded  a  rival  communion  in  the 
imperial  city,  which  did  not  die  out  for  two  hundred  years. 
And  their  obvious  meaning  is,  not  that  communion  with 
the  Roman  see  is  the  test  of  orthodoxy  and  Catholic 
fellowship  for  all  Christians,  but  that  communion  with  Pope 
Cornelius,  and  not  with  his  rival  Novatian,  was  the  test  of 
Catholicity  for  Christians  at  Rome  just  then. — {Ep.  Iv.  ad 
Antonia7ium.)  Just  so,  an  American  bishop  might  write  to 
English  clergymen  warning  them  against  the  Bishops  of  the 
so-called  "  Reformed  Episcopal  Church,"  and  explaining 
that  communion  with  the  see  of  Canterbury  was  the  test  of 
Church  fellowship  in  England  recognised  by  the  American 
Episcopate.  But  that  would  not  imply  the  subjection  of  the 
American  Bishops  themselves  to  that  see.  And  during  a 
vacancy  in  the  see  of  Rome,  St.  Cyprian  actually  sent  letters 
and  legates  to  the  Church  there  to  check  the  schism. — {Epp, 
xlv.,  xlvi.,  xlvii.)  Next — and  here  is  the  chief  evidence  in 
the  matter — St.  Cyprian  and  the  whole  African  Church, 
following  the  rigorist  view,  refused  to  admit  the  validity  of 
heretical  baptism,  and  re-baptized  sectaries  who  conformed 
to  the  Church  ;  whereas  Pope  St.  Stephen  and  the  Roman 
Church  adhered  to  the  older  and  milder  precedent  of 
admission  with  prayer  and  imposition  of  hands.  And  so 
high  did  the  controversy  run,  that  the  Pope  excommuni- 
cated St.  Cyprian  and  the  African  Church  for  refusal  to 
accept  his  ruling.  The  Acts  of  the  Council  of  Carthage  in 
255  are  still  extant,  at  which  eighty-seven  bishops  were 
present,  following  up  the  similar  proceedings  of  a  synod  of 


136  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    IV. 

seventy-one  bishops,  apparently  held  earlier  in  the  same 
year,  and  unanimously  rejecting  the  letter  of  Pope  Stephen^ 
although  enforced  with  a  threat  of  excommunication, 
wherein  he  condemned  the  ruling  of  that  earlier  synod. 
St.  Cyprian,  in  opening  the  proceedings,  explained  that  he 
did  not  mean  to  excommunicate  any  one  who  did  not  take 
his  view,  as  no  one  bishop  had  a  right  to  force  the  conscience 
or  restrict  the  authority  of  another ;  and  we  have  a 
summary  of  the  speeches  made  by  no  fewer  than  eighty- 
three  of  the  bishops  present,  only  one  of  whom  so  much  as 
condescends  to  refer  to  Pope  Stephen's  letter.  In  a  letter 
to  Pompeius  (Ixxiv.),  St.  Cyprian,  commenting  on  St. 
Stephen's  acts  and  language,  speaks  of  the  Pope's  "  error," 
his  championing  the  cause  of  heretics  against  Christians 
and  the  Church  of  God,  his  haughty,  irrelevant,  and  self- 
contradictory  writings,  his  ignorance  and  inexperience,  his 
adoption  of  lies  {me?tdada),  his  betrayal  of  the  truth  and 
faith.  It  is  very  doubtful  whether  St.  Cyprian  did  not  die 
out  of  communion  with  Rome,  and  it  is  quite  certain  that 
neither  he  nor  the  African  Church  made  any  change  in 
their  discipline  at  this  time,  nor  was  there  any  alteration  till 
after  the  deaths  of  both  Cyprian  and  Cornelius ;  so  that  if 
any  reconciliation  and  withdrawal  of  the  excommunication 
did  take  place,  it  was  without  any  submission  on  St.  Cyprian's 
part.  Nevertheless,  the  highest  liturgical  honour  which  the 
Roman  Church  can  bestow  has  been  conferred  on  him  ;  for 
his  name  occurs  not  merely  in  the  Kalendar  and  the 
Breviary,  but  is  commemorated  in  the  Canon  of  every 
Mass,  immediately  after  the  Preface,  along  with  the  Blessed 
Virgin,  the  Apostles,  five  early  Popes,  including  St. 
Cornelius  himself,  and  St.  Laurence,  with  five  others. 

6.  St.  Cyprian  sent  information  of  all  these  proceedings 
to  St.  Firmilian,  Bishop  of  Caesarea  in  Cappadocia,  who 
replied  in  a  letter  extant  in  St.  Cyprian's  works;  from  which 
some  extracts  will  now  be  given. 

In  the  preamble  of  the  letter  (sect.  2),  he  compares 
Stephen  to  Judas  Iscariot,  and  then  censures  his  "  audacity 
and  insolence  j  "  charges  him  (sect.  6)  with  departing  from 


CHAP.  IV.]    LEGAL  EVIDENCE  OF  ACTS,  CONCILIAR,  ETC.      1 57 

the  unity  of  the  Catholic  Church,  and  thereby  with 
defaming  the  blessed  Apostles  Peter  and  Paul,  and  in  sect 
1 7  adds  : — 

"And  in  this  respect  I  am  justly  indignant  at  the  open  and  manifest 
folly  of  Stephen,  that  he  who  boasts  so  of  the  place  of  his  bishopric, 
and  contends  that  he  holds  the  succession  of  Peter,  on  whom  the 
foundations  of  the  Church  were  laid,  should  bring  in  many  other  rocks, 
and  erect  new  buildings  of  many  Churches,  whilst  defending  with  his 
authority  that  there  is  baptism  there.  .  .  .  Nor  does  he  understand 
that  the  truth  of  the  Christian  rock  is  overshadowed,  and  in  some 
measure  abolished,  by  him  who  so  betrays  and  deserts  unity." 

Then,  apostrophizing  Stephen  himself,  St.  Firmilian  con- 
tinues (sect.  23,  24)  : — 

"But  indeed  thou  art  worse  than  all  heretics  ...  for  what 
strifes  and  dissensions  hast  thou  caused  throughout  the  Churches  of  the 
whole  world  !  What  a  mass  of  sin  hast  thou  heaped  up  for  thyself, 
when  thou  hast  cut  thyself  off  from  so  many  flocks  !  For  thou  hast 
cut  oflf  thyself.  Do  not  deceive  thyself;  for  he  is  really  the  schismatic 
who  has  made  himself  an  apostate  from  the  communion  of  ecclesiastical 
unity.  For  whilst  thou  thinkest  that  all  can  be  excommunicated  by 
thee,  thou  hast  excommunicated  thyself  alone  from  all," 

And  after  some  more  censure,  he  adds  at  the  close  of  the 
letter,  that  the  Pope  had  denounced  St.  Cyprian  as  "  a  false 
Christ,  a  false  apostle,  and  a  deceitful  worker ;  "  a  verdict  in 
which  Stephen  has  not  been  sustained,  though  the  Church 
at  large  has  agreed  that  he  was  right  on  the  main  question 
at  issue  between  him  and  the  Churches  of  Africa.  There 
is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  St.  Firmihan  died  in  communion 
with  Rome,  and  a  letter  of  St.  Dionysius  of  Alexandria  is 
extant  which  implies  the  contrary.  Nevertheless,  he  is 
accounted  amongst  the  saints,  and  his  resistance  to  the 
Roman  Pontiff  has  not  been  held  to  affect  his  position. 

There  is  a  further  point  to  be  considered  in  estimating 
the  value  of  this  evidence  :  which  is,  that  the  African 
Church  not  only  had  not  any  Apostolic  See  within  its  own 
limits,  but  actually  looked  to  Rome  as  its  Mother  Church, 
from  which  it  had  itself  received  the  Gospel  (Tertull.  De 
Frcescript.  Hcer.  36),  and  to  which  it  was  therefore  bound  by 


138  THE    PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  IV. 

very  close  and  peculiar  ties.  Nevertheless,  no  idea  what- 
ever of  the  duty  of  submission  to  the  Roman  chair  seems 
to  have  crossed  the  mind  of  any  African  prelate  of  that 
day ;  for  there  was  not  even  a  minority,  however  small,  in 
that  Council  of  eighty-seven  bishops  to  uphold  Pope 
Stephen's  view.  And  it  is  noticeable  too,  whereas  this 
instance,  in  a.d.  255,  is  the  first  clear  evidence  we  have  of 
a  Pope  styling  himself  the  successor  of  St.  Peter,  there  is 
indirect  proof  that  he  did  not  allege  any  Petrine  privilege 
or  authority  on  his  own  part  as  the  reason  why  his  opinion 
should  be  followed.  Imperious  as  his  conduct  undoubtedly 
was,  it  was  yet  based  on  the  appeal  to  ancient  precedent, 
not  on  his  own  indefeasible  right  to  be  judge  of  the  con- 
troversy ;  since,  had  he  put  forward  any  such  claim,  it 
would  have  been  necessarily  mentioned  and  argued  against 
in  the  Council  and  in  the  very  copious  letters  extant  on  the 
subject  in  St.  Cyprian's  works.  A  stride  forward  is  visible, 
a  clear  and  evident  proof  of  growth  in  the  Papal 
authority  and  demands  is  obtained ;  but  the  two  notions 
of  heirship  to  St.  Peter  and  primacy  of  jurisdiction  over  the 
whole  Church  were  not  even  yet  coupled  together  as  cause 
and  effect,  so  that  the  latter  must  belong  to  a  later  age,  and 
be  no  part  of  the  original  privilege  of  the  Roman  See.  It 
must,  at  best,  be  a  right  of  prescription  and  custom  ;  but  this 
view  is  repudiated  by  Rome  herself,  who  thus  destroys  her 
only  canonical  plea. 

One  part  of  St.  Cyprian's  evidence  in  favour  of  the  Papal 
claims,  however,  has  not  yet  been  discussed,  namely,  the 
letter  in  which  he  urges  Pope  Stephen  to  write  to  the 
Church  of  Aries,  in  order  to  secure  the  excommunication 
and  deposition  of  Marcian.  This  is  explained  by  Ultra- 
montanes  as  though  St.  Cyprian's  request  were  that  the  Pope, 
in  virtue  of  his  supreme  authority,  should  issue  an  edict 
against  Marcian,  which  should  serve  as  the  warrant  in 
distant  Gaul  for  his  deprivation.  The  obvious  reply  to  this 
assertion  is  that  no  example  of  deprivation  on  the  sole 
authority  of  the  Pope  occurs  for  a  long  time  after.  But  it 
is  unquestionable  that  the  fact  of  a  Western  bishop  being 


CHAP.  IV.]    LEGAL  EVIDENCE  OF  ACTS,  CONCILIAR,  ETC.     1 39 

declared  excommunicate  by  the  occupant  of  the  oldest, 
most  dignified,  and  most  powerful  see  in  Western 
Christendom  could  not  do  other  than  strengthen  the  hands 
of  his  opponents,  and  weaken  his  own  position,  so  as  to 
make  it  far  easier  to  depose  him.  In  our  own  day,  and  in 
civil  affairs,  a  diplomatic  remonstrance  from  London, 
Berlin,  or  St.  Petersburg  to  some  minor  potentate,  say  the 
King  of  Greece,  or  the  Prince  of  Bulgaria,  would  carry 
great  weight,  without  at  all  implying  the  relation  of  sovereign 
and  vassal  between  the  parties.  But  we  are  not  left  even 
to  such  a  consideration  as  this  :  for,  curiously  enough,  the 
very  next  Epistle  in  St.  Cyprian's  works  is  a  Synodal  letter 
addressed  by  him  to  the  clergy  and  people  of  Leon, 
Astorga,  and  Merida,  in  Spain  (as  far  removed  from  his 
immediate  jurisdiction  as  Aries  from  the  Pope's),  in  reply 
to  an  application  they  had  made  to  him  as  to  the  best  way  of 
dealing  with  the  apostate  bishops,  Basilides  and  Martial, 
who  held  certificates  from  the  pagan  State  of  having  done 
sacrifice  to  idols.  He  gives  his  full  sanction  and  approval, 
with  that  of  his  Provincial  Synod,  to  what  they  had  done  in 
deposing  the  offenders,  and  electing  other  bishops  in  their 
room.  He  acknowledges  Felix  and  Sabinus  as  the  true 
bishops  instead  of  Basilides  and  Martial,  and,  what  is 
much  more  to  the  point,  remarks  that  Basilides,  by  going 
to  Rome  and  deceiving  Pope  Stephen,  utterly  ignorant 
of  all  the  facts,  and  by  persuading  him  to  canvass^  for  the 
restoration  of  the  deprived  prelates  to  their  bishoprics  (not, 
be  it  observed,  to  enjoi7i  it),  had  merely  increased  his  guilt 
by  adding  fraud  and  misrepresentation  to  his  previous 
crimes;  while,  as  regards  Pope  Stephen  himself,  his 
decision  was  inherently  unsound,  as  contradicting  a  canon 
enacted  by  his  predecessor  Cornelius,  with  the  assent  of  all 
contemporary  bishops,  to  the  effect  that  men  who  had 
sinned  in  this  way,  though  admissible  to  penance  and 
communion,  could  never  be  restored  to  clerical  rank. — 
(Ep.  Ixviii.) 

*    Ui  exambiret. 


I40  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  IV. 

This  is  a  very  remarkable  comment  on  the  first  clearly 
authenticated  instance  of  spiritual  appeal  fi"om  a  local 
tribunal  to  Rome,  that  (i)  the  wrong  side  triumphed  there; 

(2)  and  did  so  against  the  plain  Canon  law  of  the  case; 

(3)  that  an  appeal  was  made  to  Carthage  against  the 
decision  at  Rome ;  and  (4)  that  the  Pope's  sentence  was 
set  aside  at  once,  and  without  argument,  as  bad  and 
invalid,  both  in  Africa  and  Spain. 

Finally,  the  latter  clause  of  {b)  is  rejected  by  Rigalt  and 
Fell  as  a  gloss  which  has  crept  into  St.  Cyprian's  text, 
while  two  of  the  strongest  passages  alleged  from  St.  Cyprian 
in  favour  of  Papal  supremacy,  cited  above  as  though 
genuine,  and  disproved  on  their  merits,  are,  in  fact,  for- 
geries and  interpolations  of  a  very  recent  date.  They  are 
the  quotations  (/)  and  {g).  These  are  absent  from  forty- 
five  extant  MSS.,  of  which  eight  are  in  the  Vatican  Library, 
and  two  are  more  than  a  thousand  years  old ;  as  also  from 
every  printed  edition  of  St.  Cyprian  between  147 1  and  1563, 
ten  in  number,  not  counting  re-impressions,  and  from  cita- 
tions made  of  the  context  by  Pope  Calixtus  II.,  about 
1 1 20,  &c.  They  first  appear  in  the  edition  of  St.  Cyprian 
published  by  Paul  Manutius  in  1563,  and  were  consequently 
omitted  by  Baluze  in  his  standard  edition.  But  he  died 
while  the  work  was  passing  through  the  press,  and  the 
Benedictine  editors  who  succeeded  him  cancelled  the  leaf, 
and  restored  the  forgeries,  alleging  that  the  words  had 
appeared  in  all  the  French  editions  for  150  years  previously, 
but  retaining  the  note  of  Baluze  as  a  witness  against  this 
fraud.  This  is  far  from  an  exceptional  casualty,  as  will  be 
shown  under  a  separate  heading  at  a  future  time.^ 

*  These  spurious  passages  of  St.  Cyprian  have  been  replaced  in 
the  text  by  F.  Hurter,  S.J.,  in  his  SandoTiim  Patrum  Opuscula 
Selecta,  and  are  cited  as  genuine  by  Mr,  Allnatt  in  his  Cathedra  Petri. 
Their  frequent  recourse  to  literary  falsification,  of  which  examples 
will  be  given  later,  is  itself  one  of  the  very  strongest  arguments  against 
Ultramonianes.  Did  they  themselves  believe  in  the  adequacy  of  the 
genuine  evidence,  they  would  not  manufacture  forgeries.  As  a  questior> 
of  dates,  the  instance  given  above  may  be  illustrated  by  a  case  tried  in 


CHAP.  IV.]    LEGAL  EVIDENCE  OF  ACTS,  CONCILIAR,  ETC.      I4I 

7.  The  next  testimony  of  importance  is  the  case  of  Paul 
of  Samosata,  Bishop  of  Antioch,  charged  with  heresy  and 
various  other  offences,  and  brought  to  trial  in  his  own  city, 
A.D.  264.  The  first  Council  which  assembled  to  try  him, 
although  the  Metropolitan  of  Ccesarea,  the  Bishop  of 
Jerusalem,  and  St.  Gregory  Thaumaturgus  were  all  present, 
was  presided  over  by  that  very  St.  Firmilian  whom  Pope 
Stephen  had  excommunicated,  and  who  had  spoken  so  very 
forcibly  against  his  doctrine  and  conduct:  a  fact  which 
shows  how  little  weight  the  Papal  censure  had  carried  with 
it.  Paul  made  a  feigned  submission,  but  on  its  hollowness 
being  detected,  a  second  Council  was  convoked  at  Antioch, 
over  which  St.  Firmilian  again  presided ;  while  a  third  was 
convoked  in  269,  and  the  presidency  once  more  offered  to 
St.  Firmilian,  then  very  aged,  who  died  before  he  could 
respond  to  the  invitation. — (Hefele,  Conciiienges.  I.  ii.  9.) 
Paul  was  now  deposed  and  excommunicated,  and  Domnus, 
son  of  Demetrian,  a  former  Bishop  of  Antioch,  elected  in 
his  room ;  while  a  Synodal  Letter,  stating  what  had 
occurred,  was  addressed  to  the  Popes  of  Rome  and 
Alexandria.  Nevertheless,  Paul — herein  setting  an  example 
faithfully  copied  by  Dr.  Colenso  sixteen  hundred  years 
later — retained  possession  of  the  episcopal  residence  and 
other  temporalities  of  the  see,  relying  on  the  favour  of 
Queen  Zenobia.  The  clergy  and  people  appealed  to  the 
heathen  Emperor  Aurelian,  as  supreme  magistrate  in  civil 
affairs,  to  adjudicate  on  the  question  of  property,  and  he 
decided  that  the  person  to  whom  the  Bishops  of  Italy  and 
Rome  (note  the  order)  should  address  letters  of  recogni- 


Edinburgh  in  June,  1878.  A  man  claimed  a  debt,  and  produced  an 
account- book,  which  he  said  had  been  kept  regularly  from  1866,  as 
would  appear  from  its  continuous  entries,  in  proof.  Lord  Young,  the 
presiding  judge,  holding  the  book  up  to  the  light,  discovered  the 
watermark  of  1874  on  one  of  the  pages,  whereupon  the  plaintiffs 
counsel  threw  up  his  brief  and  abandoned  the  case.  An  Ultramontane 
might  have  argued  that  the  book  was  an  accurate  reproduction  of 
the  earlier  account,  not  forthcoming,  no  doubt,  but  whose  disappear- 
ance could  be  satisfactorily  explained. 


142  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    IV. 

tion  should  be  held  the  true  occupant  of  the  see,  and 
retain  its  temporalities.  And,  accordingly,  Paul  was  ex- 
pelled by  sentence  of  a  civil  tribunal. — (Euseb.  Hist.  EccL 
vii.  27-30.) 

Here  there  are  some  points  to  be  noticed.  The  Synodal 
Epistle,  still  partly  extant  in  Eusebius,  makes  no  further  refer- 
ence to  the  Pope  of  Rome  than  as  sending  him  information, 
but  it  does  say  that  the  clergy  of  Antioch  had  appealed  to 
Maximus  of  Alexandria  to  come  to  their  assistance.  No 
thought  of  appeal  to  Rome  seems  to  have  occurred  to  them, 
and  when  the  Roman  Bishop,  in  conjunction  with  those  oif 
Italy  in  general,  is  appointed  to  settle  the  question  of  fact, 
it  is  by  the  act  of  a  pagan  civil  ruler,  not  by  the  free  choice 
of  any  ecclesiastical  body,  far  less  by  the  spontaneous 
exercise  of  an  indefeasible  right  on  his  own  part.  It  has 
been  seriously  argued,  even  by  Fleury,  that  the  Emperor's 
nomination  proves  that  the  very  Pagans  knew  communion 
with  the  Roman  Church  to  be  the  test  of  true  Christians. 
Surely  it  proves  nothing  but  his  notion  that  persons  living 
at  such  a  distance  from  Antioch  as  did  the  Italian  Bishops 
would  probably  be  more  dispassionate  arbiters  than  the 
Eastern  prelates,  who  had  been  personally  engaged  in  the 
controversy.  As  to  the  alleged  test,  the  history  of  SS. 
Cyprian  and  Firmilian,  just  given,  refutes  it. 

Fourth  Century. — Before  proceeding  to  instance  special 
cases  which  serve  as  evidence  in  the  matter  of  privilege 
during  the  fourth  century,  it  is  desirable  to  prefix  a  few 
remarks  on  the  general  polity  of  the  Christian  body  after 
the  conversion  of  Constantine  the  Great. 

It  is,  then,  matter  of  familiar  knowledge  that  the  Church 
copied  the  civil  organization  of  the  Empire  in  several  im- 
portant particulars,  and  notably  in  the  manner  of  parcelling 
out  its  jurisdictions.  The  names  of  exarchate,  province, 
diocese,  metropolis,  had  all  a  civil  meaning  and  application 
before  they  were  employed  as  ecclesiastical  terms  in  nearly 
the  same  sense,  and  the  Imperial  method  of  ascending 
appeals,Trom  the  local  to  the  regionary  authorities,  had  also 
its  ecclesiastical  counterpart.    But  there  are  three  differences 


CHAP.  IV.]    LEGAL  EVIDENCE  OF  ACTS,  CONCILIAR,  ETC.      1 43 

between  the  two,  so  marked  and  deliberate,  that  they  cannot 
fail  to  strike  any  one  who  institutes  a  dispassionate  com- 
parison between  them.  First,  in  the  civil  hierarchy,  all 
rank,  authority,  and  jurisdiction  culminated  in  one  supreme 
head,  the  Emperor.  The  Augustus  was  at  once  the 
fountain  of  honour,  of  justice,  and  of  power.  The  greatest 
magistrates  exercised  their  functions  in  his  name,  and  were 
appointed,  transferred,  or  dismissed  at  his  pleasure ;  there 
lay  an  appeal  to  his  personal  and  final  judgment  from  the 
most  exalted  tribunals  in  the  Empire.  Resistance  to  his 
edicts  was  high  treason,  and  independence  could  be 
acquired  by  no  process  short  of  rebellion,  enabling  a  suc- 
cessful general  either  to  depose  his  sovereign  and  usurp  the 
very  throne  of  the  Caesars  itself,  or  at  any  rate  to  rend  a 
province  or  two  for  a  time  from  the  unity  of  the  Empire^ 
and  set  up  there  as  a  rival  wearer  of  the  purple. 

No  parallel  to  this  meets  us  in  the  ecclesiastical  sphere 
for  many  centuries,  and  the  idea  of  the  Empire  and  the 
Papacy  co-existing  as  similar,  nay,  as  co-ordinate,  powers, 
the  two  swords  of  the  Gospel,  the  sun  and  moon  of  the 
firmament,  is  a  creation  of  the  Hildebrandine  era,  when  it 
becomes  a  commonplace. 

While  the  Empire  was  still  Pagan,  the  magistrates  who 
enforced  or  connived  at  persecutions  of  the  Christians  were 
fully  aware  of  this  much  at  least  of  Church  polity,  that  the 
Bishop  was  the  person  to  aim  at  if  they  desired  to  seize 
the  local  chief  of  the  illicit  religion.  And  they  also  knew 
perfectly  well  that  the  Christians  of  Rome  formed  the  most 
important  and  teeming  group  in  the  whole  body,  so  that  a 
special  prominence  attached  to  their  superior ;  an  item  of 
knowledge  which  accounts  for  the  numerous  martyrdoms 
of  early  Popes,  even  after  stern  historical  criticism  has 
retrenched  all  the  names  before  St.  Fabian  regarding 
which  no  sufficient  evidence  is  producible  on  that  head. 

Nevertheless,  in  all  the  records  preserved  to  us  of  the 
jealous  suspicion  with  which  the  State  watched  every  detail 
of  Christian  usage,  no  hint  is  discoverable  that  this  particular 
charge  was  ever  made,  that  the  Nazarene  body  acknowledged 


144  "^HE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    IV. 

the  sway  of  a  human  sovereign  other  than  the  Augustus. 
No  question  seems  ever  to  have  been  put  to  any  Pope, 
such  as  that  which  the  Procurator  of  Judaea  put  to  the 
Master:  "Art  Thou  a  king,  then?"  No  such  reply  as:  "My 
kingdom  is  not  of  this  world  " — curiously  inappropriate  as 
it  would  have  been  in  the  mouths  of  the  later  Pontiffs,  from 
the  Donation  of  Pippin  till  the  fall  of  the  Temporal  Power 
in  1870  — ever  appears  to  have  been  made  on  the  part  of 
any  Pope.  Nor  does  any  Christian  apologist  of  early 
times  labour  the  point,  and  attempt  to  allay  the  appre- 
hension of  treason  against  the  Government  which  an  insti- 
tution like  the  later  Papacy  must  necessarily  have  aroused  ; 
especially  when  it  is  borne  in  mind  that  the  Roman 
authorities  were  quite  familiar  with  just  such  an  office  as 
existing  amongst  the  Jewish  community,  vested  in  the 
Patriarch  long  settled  at  Tiberias,  who  was  acknowledged 
as  spiritual  head  by  all  the  Jews  of  the  Empire,  enjoying  a 
revenue  levied  upon  the  whole  Dispersion,  and  exercising 
direct  jurisdiction  over  the  most  remote  synagogues  through 
the  means  of  his  legates  a  latere. 

Next,  the  supreme  tribunal,  devised  for  legislative  and 
judicial  purposes  by  the  Christian  body,  is  wholly  incon- 
sistent in  theory  and  in  actual  working  with  an  absolute 
ecclesiastical  monarchy  of  any  sort.  The  Synod  or  Council 
differed  in  more  than  one  noticeable  point  from  the  Roman 
Senate  and  the  Jewish  Sanhedrin. 

It  was  unlike  both  these  bodies,  in  that  its  sessions  were 
intermittent  and  occasional,  summoned  for  emergencies 
alone,  instead  of  its  being  a  permanently  constituted  organ- 
ization. It  was  yet  more  unlike  them  in  its  distinctive 
principle  of  local  representation,  which  makes  it  the  true 
parent  of  the  modern  Parliament.  It  is  true  that  the 
members  took  their  seat  in  virtue  of  a  certain  ecclesiastical 
rank,  but  not  if  that  rank  were  dissociated  from  actual 
office  in  the  very  district  whence  they  came  as  delegates. 
The  mere  fact  of  episcopal  consecration,  or  even  of  past 
services  in  an  episcopal  capacity,  did  not  confer  a  vote. 
For  that  privilege  it  was  necessary  to  be  in  actual  possession 


CHAP.  IV.]    LEGAL  EVIDENCE  OF  ACTS,  CONCILIAR,  ETC.      1 45 

and  administration  of  a  diocese ;  and  the  special  function 
which  each  Bishop  was  expected  to  discharge  from  his 
place  in  the  assembly  was  to  attest,  in  matter  of  doctrine, 
the  historical  belief  current  in  his  diocese ;  and  in  matter 
of  discipline  to  express  the  conclusions  at  which  he  had 
arrived  by  conference  with  his  presbyters  in  their  local 
synod.  And  thirdly,  whereas  the  Senate  never  left  Rome, 
nor  the  Sanhedrin  Jerusalem,  Church  Councils  might,  and 
did,  meet  anywhere. 

Such  a  theory  and  method  as  this  is  fundamentally 
incompatible  with  a  despotism,  which  knows  nothing  of 
representative  assemblies  with  free  right  of  deliberating  and 
voting.  The  very  clumsiness  of  this  machinery  for  all 
executive  purposes — a  fault  inseparable  from  Parliamentary- 
government — which  must  have  been  obvious  from  the  very- 
first,  shows  that  only  a  conception  of  the  constitution  and 
functions  of  the  Church  altogether  unlike  the  Papal  one 
was  present  to  the  mind  of  ancient  Christendom.  No 
true  despotism  has  genuine  Parliaments.  France  did  not 
acquire  them  till  after  the  Restoration,  Russia  has  not  got 
them  even  now :  the  specious  imitation  which  has  recently- 
been  set  up  in  Turkey  is  as  delusive  as  the  Roman  Senate, 
once  a  free  assembly,  became  when  it  did  but  dutifully 
register  the  edicts  of  the  Emperor. 

Now,  if  the  Christian  Synod  had  been  a  body  in  perma- 
nent session  at  Rome,  it  might  be  possible  to  regard  it  as 
being  the  Pope's  executive  ministry,  employed,  indeed,  in 
deliberations,  but  only  on  such  topics  as  he  chose  to  submit 
to  the  members,  as  a  Louis  XIV.  may  have  consulted  his 
ministers.  Or,  without  going  so  far,  it  might  have  led  up  at 
least  to  the  conclusion  that  Rome  was  to  Christendom  what 
Jerusalem  was  to  Judaism,  and  that  the  Roman  See  collec- 
tively, not  merely  in  the  person  of  its  Bishop,  exercised  as 
of  right  a  paramount  influence  in  the  Catholic  Church.  But 
the  dispersive  franchise,  the  variable  rendezvous,  the  inter- 
mittent session,  the  equality  of  voice,  the  finality  of  decision, 
which  are  the  peculiar  marks  of  the  Council  in  its  perfected 
form,  all  denote  an  authority  not  merely  independent  of,  but 

L 


146  THE   PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [cHAP.    IV. 

superior  to,  the  Papacy.  For  it  is  a  maxim  of  common 
sense  and  expediency,  as  well  as  of  law,  that  it  is  superfluous 
to  employ  more  force  or  agents  than  absolutely  necessary  to 
secure  a  given  result :  Friistra  jit  per  plures  quod  fieri  potest 
per  pauciores.  There  is  no  trace  whatsoever  discoverable  in 
the  Gospels  of  any  consultative  function  amongst  the  first 
disciples.  Even  the  Apostles  themselves  never  once  appear 
as  in  any  case  a  Privy  Council  or  Cabinet  to  assist  their 
King.  They  are  His  mere  servants,  nearer  to  His  Person, 
indeed,  than  the  remainder,  admitted  to  more  intimate  inter- 
course, favoured  with  more  explicit  teaching,  endowed,  it 
may  be,  with  greater  spiritual  gifts.  But  neither  their  advice 
nor  their  approval  is  ever  asked.  They  have  but  to  hear 
and  to  obey.i  Contrariwise,  no  sooner  does  the  Ascension 
take  place,  than  the  consultative  and  executive  Christian 
assembly  shows  itself  in  full  session  and  operation,  busied 
with  the  task  of  providing  a  successor  to  the  seat  in  the 
Apostolic  College  vacated  by  the  fall  and  suicide  of  Judas 
Iscariot  (Acts  i.  15-26).  Clearly,  if  St.  Peter  had  received 
the  plenitude  of  teaching  and  ruling  power  as  Vicar  of 
Christ,  in  a  special  sense  and  degree  unshared  by  the 
remaining  Apostles,  we  should  find  Christ's  own  method  still 
pursued ;  and  Peter,  while  confessing,  it  may  be,  his  own 
unspeakable  inferiority  to  Him  whose  Vicegerent  he  had 
become,  would  have  claimed  and  exercised  exactly  Christ's 
authority,  just  as  a  Regent  does  regal  power  in  the  absence 
of  the  king.     He  would,  in  truth,  have  had  no  choice  in  the 

'  Even  apart  from  the  issue  argued  here  as  to  the  Councils,  the 
practical  working  of  the  Roman  Church  down  to  1870  testifies  against 
Papal  supremacy  and  infallibility.  For  though  a  mere  Pontifical 
Brief,  of  a  private  or  local  character,  could  be  issued  by  the  Pope 
singly,  yet  an  ex-cathedrd  Bull,  addressed  to  the  Latin  Church  generally, 
required  for  validity  the  previous  consultation  and  adhesion  of  the 
majority  of  the  Cardinals.  This  fact  is  given  full  expression,  for 
instance,  in  the  Bull  of  Paul  III.  convoking  the  Council  of  Trent, 
wherein  he  says  that  he  is  conscious  of  his  own  weakness  and  inability 
to  deal  with  the  heavy  burden  before  him,  and  so  has  acted  with  the 
advice  and  consent  of  his  venerable  brothers,  the  Cardinals  of  the 
Holy  Roman  Church. 


CHAP.  IV.]    LEGAL  EVIDENCE  OF  ACTS,  CONCILIAR,  ETC.      1 47 

matter,  and  no  plea  of  humility  or  unfitness  could  have 
excused  him  from  discharging  an  office  to  which  he  had 
been  divinely  appointed,  and  from  nominating  the  new 
Apostle  at  once,  on  his  own  separate  responsibility. 

What  St.  Peter  did  not,  and  therefore,  it  may  fairly  be 
said,  could  not  do,  is  consequently  not  open  to  any  one 
claiming  to  be  his  heir,  successor,  and  representative  to  do 
either  ;  a  conclusion  which  not  merely  settles  the  question 
of  the  superiority  of  the  Church  over  the  Pope,  but  at 
once  disproves  his  right  to  nominate  to  vacant  bishop- 
rics, a  privilege  which  has  perhaps  wrought  more  mischief 
to  Latin  Christendom  than  any  other  arrogated  by  the 
Papacy. 

Thus,  to  all  persons  gifted  with  legal  or  historical  instinct, 
the  mere  fact  of  Councils  being  held  at  all  is  completely 
subversive  of  the  "  Privilege  of  Peter ; "  but,  as  there  is  a 
majority  which  does  not  possess  either  of  these  qualifica- 
tions for  judging  of  the  question,  it  becomes  necessary  to 
adduce  the  specific  disproofs  which  reinforce  this  general 
refutation. 

Foremost  amongst  these,  and  meeting  us  almost  at  the 
outset  of  the  fourth  century,  is  the  peculiar  ecclesiastical 
position  assigned  to  the  Christian  Emperors  by  the  voluntary 
cession,  nay,  at  the  pressing  solicitation,  of  the  clergy,  and 
not  by  spontaneous  usurpation  on  the  part  of  the  State. 
Three  hundred  years  of  Caesarism  had  not  been  without  the 
effect  of  making  a  servile  temper  prevail  in  every  class  of 
society,  and  amongst  the  clerical  body  scarcely  less  than  in 
civil,  legal,  and  military  circles.  And,  accordingly,  when  the 
Episcopate  found  that  mighty  power  which  had  long  been 
the  im])lacable  foe  of  Christianity  suddenly  transformed  into 
a  friend  by  the  conversion  of  Constantine  the  Great,  the 
reaction  was  too  much  for  it,  and  it  hastened,  with  too 
eager  precipitation  in  allying  itself  to  imperialism,  to  barter 
away  the  inherent  spiritual  freedom  of  the  Church  for  the 
temporal  advantages  of  Establishment.  The  like  pheno- 
menon is  visible  on  a  smaller  scale  in  the  adulation  with 
which  the  Anglican  clergy,  already  demoralised  by  nearly  a 

L  2 


148  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    IV, 

century  ot  the  Tudor  tyranny,  greeted  the  accession  of 
James  I.,  in  their  joy  at  finding  that  he  had  no  mind  to 
favour  the  Presbyterianism  in  which  he  had  been  reared ; 
but  they  had  the  advantage  of  receiving  their  chastisement 
somewhat  sooner,  in  the  overthrow  of  their  polity  as  a 
consequence  of  their  identification  of  Church  interests  with 
the  unconstitutional  action  of  Charles  I.  The  vengeance 
which  fell  upon  the  ancient  Church  was  nearly  as  swift,  far 
more  dangerous,  and  a  great  deal  more  permanent,  in  the 
shape  of  that  Arianism  which  found  its  surest  bulwark  and 
strongest  champions  in  the  Imperial  palace,  or  in  those 
episcopal  courtiers  with  whom  the  influence  of  the  Augustus 
filled  more  than  half  the  sees  of  Christendom.  That  a  fatal 
Byzantinism,  more  destructive  of  all  spiritual  vitality  than 
the  extremest  Erastian  teaching  of  modern  times,  must  have 
inevitably  resulted  from  the  subservience  of  the  clergy  to 
the  Emperors,  had  it  been  persevered  in,  scarcely  admits  of 
question.  And  it  may,  therefore,  be  cheerfully  conceded  that 
the  rise  of  the  Papacy  served  as  its  corrective  in  the  West, 
and  was  the  less  of  two  evils.  But  what  the  fact  of  this 
Caesarism  establishes  is  that  no  idea  of  a  double  personal  alle- 
giance, pulling  different  ways,  seems  for  a  moment  to  have 
crossed  the  mind  of  the  ecclesiastical  body ;  for,  in  truth, 
the  Roman  Pontiff  was  at  first,  and  for  a  long  time,  as  deep 
in  the  mire  of  servility  as  any  one  else.  When  the  Emperors 
became  Arian,  or,  as  in  Julian's  case,  reverted  to  Paganism 
itself,  the  bishops  and  clergy  were,  of  course,  aware  then  of 
a  conflict  of  duties ;  yet  that  conflict  did  not  consist  in  the 
rival  claims  of  two  sovereigns,  a  spiritual  and  a  temporal 
emperor  (as  it  did  later,  during  the  struggle  between 
Gregory  VII.  and  Henry  IV.),  but  in  the  choice  between 
a  creed  and  a  person,  between  the  faith  of  Nicaea  and 
obedience  to  Cassar's  will.  It  would  have  been  absolutely 
impossible,  had  an  authority  existed  in  the  Christian  Church 
of  the  fourth  century  at  all  analogous  to  the  mediaeval 
Papacy,  for  such  ecclesiastical  powers  to  have  been  lodged 
in  the  hands  of  the  Emperors  as  history  records  them  to 
have  wielded.     At  the  very  least,  some  evidence  of  protest 


CHAP.  IV.]    LEGAL  EVIDENCE  OF  ACTS,  CONCILIAR,  ETC.      149 

at  SO  momentous  a  change,  or  else  some  concordat  whereby 
the  Roman  Pontiff  ceded  some  of  his  inherent  rights  to  the 
civil  power,  would  be  producible,  had  the  "  Privilege  of 
Peter  "  been  a  recognised,  not  to  say  a  predominant,  factor 
in  the  Church  system  of  the  time ;  but  nothing  of  the  sort 
is  discoverable  by  the  minutest  investigation. 

On  the  contrary,  the  earlier  conciliar  history  of  the  Church 
is  curiously  explicit  in  traversing  certain  claims  put  forward 
by  later  Popes  as  inalienable  privileges  of  the  Roman  chair. 
Thus,  Leo  X.,  in  the  Lateran  Synod  of  151 6,  lays  down  that 
"  It  is  manifestly  established  that  the  Roman  Pontiff  for  the 
time  being,  as  having  authority  over  all  Councils,  has  alone 
the  full  power  of  convoking,  transferring,  dissolving  Coun- 
cils" {Cone.  Lat.  Sess.  xi.).  Nor  was  this  a  new  claim  at 
that  time.  It  had  been  advanced  as  early  as  a.d.  785  by 
Hadrian  I.,  who  affirmed  that  "by  the  Lord's  command, 
and  the  merits  of  blessed  Peter  the  Apostle,  and  by  mani- 
fold decrees  of  holy  Canons  and  venerable  Fathers,  the 
peculiar  authority  and  personal  power  of  assembling  synods 
is  delivered  to  the  Pope"  (Hadr.  I.,  ajf.  Bin.  Concil.\.  565). 
And  a  similar  assertion  is  perhaps  found  yet  earlier  in  a 
letter  ascribed  to  Pelagius  II.  {Ep.  viii.)  in  a.d.  587,  whose 
authenticity  is,  however,  denied  by  Launoi. 

As  there  is  no  question  at  all  that  precisely  this  right  of 
convoking,  proroguing,  and  dissolving  a  mere  diocesan 
synod  did  belong  to  each  bishop  in  his  own  diocese,  it 
follows,  as  a  matter  of  course,  that  if  the  Pope's  relation  to 
the  whole  Church  be  analogous  to  that  of  each  Ordinary 
within  each  local  jurisdiction,  and  he  be  supreme  and 
general  Ordinary,  he  must  be  found  to  have  exercised  from 
the  first  this  power  over  all  Councils  which  were  more  than 
mere  diocesan  or  provincial  assemblies.  And,  by  parity  of 
reasoning,  every  instance  producible  that  he  did  not,  in  fact, 
convoke  or  direct  such  Councils  goes  so  far  to  disprove, 
not  merely  this  one  special  claim,  but  the  whole  alleged 
"  Privilege  of  Peter." 

It  is  true  that  the  first  introduction  of  the  Emperor  as  a 
permanent  factor  in  religious  controversy  lies  at  the  door  of 


150  THE   PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [cHAP.    IV. 

the  Donatists,  who  besought  Constantine  to  send  judges 
from  Gaul  to  Africa  to  decide  between  them  and  Csecilian 
(Optat.  Milev.  De  Schism.  Do7iat.) ;  an  application  to  which 
the  Emperor  acceded  in  a  letter  he  addressed  on  the  subject 
to  Pope  Melchiades  (or  Miltiades)  preserved  to  us  by 
Eusebius  {Hist.  Eccl.  x.  5),  which  says  that  he  had  ordered 
Caecilian  to  sail  to  Rome  with  ten  bishops  of  his  own  side 
and  ten  of  the  accusing  party,  there  to  be  heard  by  Mel- 
chiades himself,  along  with  three  colleagues  nominated  by 
the  Emperor ;  namely,  Reticius,  Bishop  of  Autun,  Maternus 
of  Cologne,  and  Marinus  of  Aries. ^ 

The  decision  of  this  Synod,  which  acquitted  Caecilian 
and  condemned  Donatus,  was  at  once  forwarded  to  the 
Emperor  for  approval  and  confirmation ;  and  thus  it 
appears  that  though,  as  just  observed,  the  Donatists  began 
the  system  of  appeal  to  the  State,  there  was  entire 
acquiescence  on  the  Catholic  part,  and  the  Pope  himself 
readily  obeyed  the  Imperial  mandate  as  to  the  convening 
of  the  Synod,  the  nomination  of  its  members,  and  the 
conduct  of  the  dispute  whereof  cognisance  was  taken. 

In  the  next  year,  314,  as  the  decision  of  the  Synod  ot 
Rome  had  done  little  or  nothing  to  allay  the  schism — a 
fact  in  itself  incidentally  proving  that  the  Pope's  share  in 
the  matter  gave  no  finality  to  the  proceedings  in  the 
minds  of  the  disputants — Constantine,  again  appealed  to, 
summoned  Bishops  from  every  part  of  the  empire  to  meet 
in  another  Council  at  Aries,  which  was  then  in  fact,  though 
not  technically,  a  General  Council  (Euseb.  uhi  supra)^^ 
and  at  the  least  did  fairly  represent  Western  Christendom. 
This  Council  was  not  only  summoned  by  Constantine, 
but  there  seems  reason  to  believe  that  he  may  have 
named  its  president,  the  Bishop  of  the  see,   that  Marinus 


^  '  Bishop  Hefele  {Conciliengeschichte,  I.  iii.  13)  alleges  that  Constan- 
tine in  this  letter  expresses  displeasure  at  being  called  in  as  arbiter  at 
all ;  but  no  phrase  of  the  sort  occurs  in  it. 

2  St.  Augustine  calls  it   '^plenarhim  Ecclesice  Uniuersce  concilium'^* 
(Epist.  xliii.),  but  perhaps  is  speaking  of  Western  Christendom  only. 


CHAP.  IV.]    LEGAL  EVIDENCE  OF  ACTS,  CONCILIAR,  ETC.      151 

who  had  already  taken  part  in  the  Roman  Synod  of  the 
previous  year.  His  signature  stands  first  in  the  letter  of 
the  Council,  and  precedes  that  of  the  four  Papal  Legates 
sent  by  Pope  Sylvester — (Mansi,  Condi,  ii.  469,  476).  The 
letter  itself,  addressed  to  the  Pope  in  order  that  he  might 
on  its  receipt  take  measures  for  the  publication  of  its 
decrees  throughout  his  jurisdiction,  is  not  couched  in 
particularly  submissive  terms.  It  begins  thus  :  "  Marinus 
and  the  assembly  of  Bishops  who  were  gathered  in  the 
town  of  Aries,  to  our  most  holy  brother,  the  Lord  Sylvester. 
AVe  signify  to  you,  dear  brother  \caritati  tuce\  what  we 
have  decreed  in  joint  council,  that  all  may  know  what  they 
are  henceforth  to  observe  " — (Hefele,  uhi  supra). 

Although  Donatus  was  condemned  a  second  time  at 
Aries,  his  party  appealed  again  from  the  sentence,  and 
both  he  and  Caecilian  appeared  before  the  Emperor 
himself  at  Milan  in  316,  who  gave  judgment  a  third  time 
in  favour  of  the  Catholics.  That  the  schismatics  should 
have  resisted  to  the  last  is  not  surprising,  but  the  really 
notable  fact  is  the  readiness  of  the  Catholics  to  accept  the 
sovereign's  arbitration,  instead  of  falling  back  on  the  two 
ecclesiastical  decisions  previously  given. 

But  the  chief  interest  of  the  inquiry  naturally  centres  in 
the  famous  CEcumenical  Council  of  Nicaea,  which  is  not 
only  the  first  ever  held,  and  the  most  important  for 
Christianity  in  its  issues,  but  which  has  invariably  been 
regarded  as  the  most  august  and  authoritative  amongst  even 
General  Councils  themselves.  Every  detail  of  its  history 
and  procedure  has  thus  great  weight  in  the  establishment 
of  precedents,  and  its  testimony  upon  the  matter  now  in 
hand  is  perfectly  clear. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  the  Council  of  Nicaea  was  con- 
voked by  the  Emperor  Constantine  himself,  and  that,  as  it 
would  appear,  acting  on  the  advice  of  his  usual  counsellor 
in  ecclesiastical  affairs,  Hosius,  Bishop  of  Cordova  (Hefele, 
Concilienges.  IL  i.  22,  24).  The  question  is  raised  whether 
he  did  this  in  his  own  name  alone,  or  in  concert  with 
Pope  Sylvester.     Neither  Eusebius  nor  any  of  the  more 


152  THE   PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    IV. 

ancient  documents  hints  at  any  participation  of  Sylvester. 
But  Pope  Damasus,  if  the  Liber  Pontificalis  ascribed  to 
him  be  his,  asserts  the  matter  in  its  first  chapter ;  1  and  it 
is  certain  that  the  sixth  General  Council  in  680  said — but 
three  centuries  too  late  to  be  evidence — that  "  Constantine, 
ever  Augustus,  and  the  venerable  Sylvester  convened  the 
great  and  conspicuous  Synod  at  Nicaea  " — (Hardouin,  iii. 
141 7).  It  is  likely  enough  that  the  Pope,  as  chief  Bishop 
of  the  West,  was  communicated  with  beforehand  by  the 
Emperor,  but  a  phrase  used  by  Rufinus  deprives  even  this 
concession  of  practical  significance,  for  he  says  {H,  E.\.  i) 
that  the  Emperor  summoned  the  Council  "at  the  advice 
of  the  priests  "  (ex  sententia  sacerdotufn),  without  implying 
particular  reference  to  any  one  personage;  and  it  is 
therefore  highly  improbable  that  the  two  names  were 
coupled  in  the  letter  of  summons,  even  in  the  relative  order 
of  the  citation  given  above.  For  there  is  not  only  the 
mere  absence  of  precise  documentary  proof,  which  might 
perhaps  be  taken  as  balancing  the  arguments  on  both 
sides,  but  such  a  proceeding  on  the  Emperor's  part  directly 
contradicts  the  course  he  is  known  to  have  pursued  in 
convening  the  two  previous  Synods  at  Rome  and  Aries,  in 
respect  of  which  no  doubt  has  ever  been  thrown  on  the 
single  and  independent  character  of  his  action.  It  would 
be  necessary,  in  order  to  set  aside  this  plain  inference,  to 
show  that  some  great  change  had  come  over  his  own  view 
of  the  situation,  or  else  over  Church  policy  or  sentiment, 


'  A  piece  of  evidence,  erring  by  the  mistake  of  being  altogether  too 
cogent,  has  been  ingeniously  manufactured  out  of  a  conjectural  various 
reading  of  Valesius  {tTriXiKToi  for  iTriaKoiroi)  in  the  Synodal  Letter 
of  Pope  Damasus  to  the  Bishops  of  Illyria,  in  Theodoret,  Hist. 
Eccl.  ii.  22.  He  is  made  to  say  that  the  "  three  hundred  and  eighteen 
Fathers  were  selected  hy  the  Bishop  of  Rome  to  deliberate  at  Nicsea." 
The  fact  is  that  if  the  word  sTriXfjcroi,  and  not  tiriffKOTroi,  be  the 
true  reading  in  the  passage,  it  must  needs  run  thus  :  "  Our  Fathers, 
three  hundred  and  eighteen  Bishops,  and  also  the  holy  delegates  of 
the  Romans,"  /.<f.,  denoting  that  the  Papal  legates  at  Nicsea  were 
priests  only,  and  not  Bishops. 


CHAP.  IV.]    LEGAL  EVIDENCE  OF  ACTS,  CONCILIAR,  ETC.      153 

during  the  interval  between  313  and  325,  but  no  trace  of 
the  sort  is  discoverable. 

Next,  the  solemn  session  of  the  Council  was  opened  by 
the  Emperor,  and  not  by  any  of  the  Bishops  present. 
Constantine  acted  as  honorary  president  at  first,  and  then 
ceded  his  place  to  the  ecclesiastical  "  presidents  " — (Euseb. 
Vit.  Const,  iii.  12,  13).  Accordingly,  Pope  Stephen  V. 
speaks  of  the  Emperor  as  having  in  fact  presided  at 
Nicaea  (Hardouin,  v.  1119). 

Thirdly,  the  actual  ecclesiastical  presidency  was  un- 
doubtedly held  by  Hosius,  Bishop  of  Cordova.  The 
question  here  arises  whether  he  held  this  rank  ex  officio  as 
legate  of  the  Pope,  or  on  any  other  ground.  In  favour  of 
the  former  opinion  is  this  solitary  testimony  of  Gelasius  of 
Cyzicus,  a  writer  of  the  fifth  century,  who  compiled  a 
history  of  the  Council : — "  And  Hosius  was  the  represen- 
tative (jTri')(uiv  Kul  Toy  roirov)  of  the  Bishop  of  Rome, 
and  he  was  present  at  the  Council  of  Nicaea,  with  the  two 
Roman  priests,  Vitus  and  Vincentius." 

Bishop  Hefele,  in  the  Introduction  to  his  History  of  the 
CouTuils^  lays  great  stress  on  this  passage,  and  treats  it  as 
practically  decisive  of  the  controversy.  But,  in  the  body 
of  the  work,  where  he  has  occasion  to  cite  this  same 
Gelasius  on  other  points,  he  rejects  his  testimony  as 
worthless.  Thus,  speaking  of  an  alleged  collection  of 
minutes  of  a  disputation  held  at  Nicaea  between  some 
heathen  philosophers  and  Christian  Bishops,  inserted  by 
Gelasius  in  his  history,  he  describes  them  as  spurious  and 
apocryphal,  and  adds  that  there  is  no  evidence  of  Gelasius 
or  any  one  else  having  seen  or  used  the  Synodal  Acts  of 
Nicaea,  and  again,  that  "  he  admitted  things  which  were 
improbable  and  evidently  false" — {Concilienges.  II.  ii.  23). 

Once  more,  Hefele  sets  aside  the  evidence  of  Gelasius 
as  of  no  value  when  alleging  that  the  Emperor  took  part 
for  several  months  in  the  Episcopal  sessions,  and  states 
that  this  error  has  arisen  from  confusing  the  preliminary 
meetings,  at  which  Constantine  was  not  present,  with  the 
later  deliberations,  in  which  he  did  share — (II.  ii.  29). 


1^4  THE    PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    IV. 

It  SO  happens  that  a  piece  of  evidence  does  exist  which 
decides  the  controversy.  Those  who  are  acquainted  with 
the  documentary  history  of  the  Nicene  Council  are  aware 
that  the  lists  of  the  signatures  which  have  come  down  to 
us  vary  considerably,  and  bear  marks  of  error  and  inter- 
polation on  the  part  of  copyists.  However,  Zoega  discovered 
a  list  in  an  ancient  Coptic  manuscript,  whose  enumeration 
appears  on  the  whole  the  most  authentic  yet  produced, 
and  it  has  therefore  served  as  a  means  of  interpreting  and 
reconciling  those  formerly  known  to  exist.  Cardinal  Pitra 
has  reprinted  it  in  full — {Spicilegium  Solestnense,  vol.  i. 
pp.  513-528).  In  this  the  three  earliest  signatures  are 
thus  expressed,  agreeing  substantially  with  Mansi's  text 
(II.  692,  697)  : — "  From  Spain,  Hosius,  of  the  city  of 
Cordova  :  '  I  believe  thus  as  is  written  above.'  Vito  and 
Innocentius,  Priests  :  '  We  have  signed  for  our  Bishop, 
who  is  Bishop  of  Rome ;  he  believes  thus  as  is  written 
above.' " 

Clearly,  then,  Hosius  signed  for  himself  and  for  no  one 
else.  Had  he  iDeen  Papal  Legate,  or  even  held  the  Pope's 
proxy,  that  fact  would  have  necessarily  been  stated  in  his 
signature  as  being  for  himself  and  the  Pope  jointly  ;  while 
the  terms  of  the  real  legatine  signatures  plainly  show  that 
the  two  Roman  priests  were  quite  unaware  of  any  partner 
or  superior  in  their  commission,  but  signed  for  the  Pope  on 
their  own  independent  responsibility,  which  is  the  view 
of  Eusebius,  himself  a  member  of  the  Council,  who 
observes  : — "  The  Prelate  of  the  Imperial  City  was  absent 
through  old  age,  but  his  Presbyters  were  present,  and 
filled  his  place" — {Vit.  Const,  iii.  7).  Of  course,  it  maybe 
freely  admitted  that  the  place  occupied  by  the  Roman 
signatures,  as  next  to  that  of  the  president  himself,  does 
so  far  attest  the  priority  of  rank  accorded  to  the  See  which 
they  represented;  but  it  is  to  be  noted,  as  tending  to 
attenuate  even  this  evidence,  that  the  known  order  of 
rank  amongst  the  provinces  is  not  observed  in  the  list, 
inasmuch  as  though  Alexandria  does  come  first  after  the 
legatine  signatures,   yet    the    Thebaid,    Libya,    Palestine, 


CHAP.  IV.]    LEGAL  EVIDENCE  OF  ACTS,  CONCILIAR,  ETC.     I55 

and  Phoenicia  are  interposed  between  it  and  the  third 
Patriarchal  See,  that  of  Antioch.  If  fuller  confirmation 
were  required  of  the  view  thus  set  out,  it  is  to  be  found 
in  the  detail  respecting  the  Council  of  Sardica  in  347, 
preserved  for  us  by  St.  Athanasius,  who  tells  us  {Apol.  ii.  50) 
that  Hosius  of  Cordova  signed  its  Acts  first,  and  then 
Julius  of  Rome,  through  his  legates  Archidamus  and 
Philoxenus,  thereby  clearly  distinguishing  the  nature  of 
the  several  signatures. 

That  debate  being  thus  settled,  it  may  be  pointed  out 
that  the  humble  ecclesiastical  rank  of  the  Papal  legates 
serves  to  accentuate  another  fact  which  seems  to  have 
been  overlooked  in  this  connexion,  namely,  that  the  Pope 
had  at  that  time  no  such  control  or  superiority  over  any 
other  Bishop  as  to  empower  him  to  send  a  man  of  that 
rank  as  his  mere  envoy.  The  legates  of  later  days  have 
usually  been  Cardinals  (after  Cardinals  were  raised  to 
their  anomalous  princely  rank  in  the  Latin  hierarchy, 
from  having  been  the  mere  parish  priests  of  certain 
churches  in  the  city  of  Rome),  Archbishops,  or  at  least 
Bishops  of  some  distinction.  And  a  Pope  of  modern 
times  who  chose  to  despatch  an  officer  of  the  kind 
would  have  hundreds  of  such  personages  at  hand,  as  his 
dependents,  to  choose  from  at  his  discretion. 

It  cannot  be  supposed  for  a  moment  that  Pope  Sylvester 
wished,  even  had  he  dared,  to  cast  any  slight  on  the 
Emperor  or  on  the  Council  by  sending  delegates  of 
inferior  rank  to  sit  and  vote  with  their  ecclesiastical 
superiors  on  a  footing  of  equality ;  far  less  that  he  meant 
to  insinuate  that  a  priest  holding  a  Papal  commission 
ranked,  in  virtue  thereof,  above  the  Episcopal  order ;  but 
simply  that  he  had  no  other  kind  of  envoy  at  his  disposal ; 
all  Bishops,  however  obscure  their  sees  or  their  persons, 
being  for  Synodal  purposes  his  colleagues  and  equals  in 
power,  though  inferior  in  rank  of  precedence  and  in  general 
influence;  just  as  the  premier  Duke  and  the  junior  Baron 
are  each  other's /r^r^  in  the  English  House  of  Lords,  what- 
ever dissimilarity  may  exist  in  their  social  consideration. 


156  THE    PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    IV. 

Ivastly,  as  regards  the  formal  confirmation  of  the  Acts 
of  the  Council,  this  too  was  the  work  of  Constantine  alone, 
and  no  hint  of  any  special  share  in  the  transaction  being 
allotted  to  the  Pope  appears  in  ancient  records — (Euseb. 
Vit.  Cofist  iii.  17-19 ;  Socrat.  H.  E.  i.  9).  But  it  may  be 
added  here,  in  anticipation  of  an  argument  often  adduced 
from  the  Ultramontane  side,  that  as  the  object  of  all 
plenary  Councils,  whether  (Ecumenical  or  not,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  the  mere  local  scope  of  diocesan  or  even 
provincial  canons  and  decrees,  was  to  attest  the  consent 
and  bind  the  practice  of  all  Christendom,  it  was  the 
invariable  usage  to  send  round  the  Acts  to  all  Bishops  who 
had  not  been  present  or  represented,  and  especially  to 
such  as  occupied  Patriarchal  and  Exarchal  sees,  that  their 
assent  and  influence  might  corroborate  the  proceedings  of 
the  Council.  For  it  must  be  steadily  borne  in  mind  that 
the  mere  enactment  of  canons  by  a  Council  of  ancient 
times  did  not  at  once  raise  them  to  the  rank  of  binding 
ecclesiastical  laws.  They  were  at  best  only  in  the  position 
of  a  British  Act  of  Parliament  before  receiving  the  Royal 
assent,  while  the  Sovereign's  veto  was  still  a  living  reality. 
Only,  instead  of  going  specially  to  the  Pope  for  ratification, 
the  Fathers  of  a  Council  had,  in  English  Parliamentary 
idiom,  "to  go  to  the  country,"  and  to  apply  to  the  dis- 
persive Church  in  its  several  dioceses  for  approval  of  their 
proceedings  ;  and  not  until  this  had  been  given  so  exten- 
sively as  to  amount  to  a  general  acceptance  of  the  policy 
of  the  Council,  could  it  claim  the  title  of  CEcumenical,  and 
the  obedience  of  the  Christian  commonwealth.  That  the 
approval  of  the  Roman  Pontiff,  and  his  confirmation  of 
the  Acts  and  Canons  of  any  plenary  Council,  would  always 
be  asked  in  this  fashion,  is  a  necessary  consequence  of  this 
method  of  action,  and  it  is  also  clear  that  the  unequalled 
position  of  his  See  in  Western  Christendom,  giving  it  a 
degree  of  influence  extending  far  beyond  its  strict  Patriarchal 
boundaries,  would  have  made  disapproval  on  his  part  a 
serious  blow  to  the  general  reception  of  any  Conciliar 
acts,  as  he  might  very  conceivably  have  secured   their  at 


CHAP.  IV.]    LEGAL  EVIDENCE  OF  ACTS,  CONCILIAR,  ETC.      157 

least  partial  rejection  in  the  West  But  the  Ultramontane 
fallacy  lies  in  habitually  suppressing  the  facts  that  con- 
firmation in  this  sense  does  not  mean  validating  that 
which  otherwise  would  be  without  force,  but  signifying 
adhesion  to  the  Conciliar  definitions,  thereby  strengthen- 
ing their  position  ;  and  that  appeal  for  confirmation  of 
exactly  the  same  kind  was  equally  made  to  all  the  other 
Patriarchs  and  prelates  of  the  Church.  A  case  in  point, 
already  cited,  serves  to  illustrate  this  position ;  namely, 
that  Pope  Leo  II.  invited  the  Spanish  Bishops  to  give 
local  confirmation  to  the  decrees  of  the  Sixth  General 
Council  held  in  68 1,  and  that  the  Fourteenth  Council  of 
Toledo  in  684  explained  that  adequate  reasons  had 
impeded  earlier  compliance  with  the  message,  but  that 
those  Canons  had  been  in  the  meanwhile  carefully  studied 
and  approved  in  the  several  diocesan  synods  of  Spain,  and 
that  the  national  Council  then  being  held  was  ready  to 
pass  confirmatory  decrees.  Thus  it  is  evident  that  some 
degree  of  full  ratification  was  still  lacking  to  these  decrees 
of  Constantinople,  even  after  they  had  received  Papal 
approval,  till  the  mind  of  the  Spanish  Church  had  been 
ascertained,  albeit  a  mere  outlying  and  not  very  prominent 
factor  at  that  time  in  Western  Christendom.  Indeed,  one 
of  the  items  of  evidence  cited  by  Hefele  when  striving  to 
maintain  the  Papal  assent  as  an  essential  of  oecumenicity, 
although  itself  unauthentic,  as  he  admits  {Concilienges, 
Einleit.  vi.  i),  namely,  that  five  documents,  dating  from 
the  fifth  century,  mention  a  solemn  approval  of  the  Acts 
of  Nicaea  given  by  Pope  Sylvester  and  a  Roman  Synod  ot 
275  Bishops,  shows  at  once  that  the  idea  present  to  the 
minds  of  the  authors  of  those  documents,  whoever  they 
may  have  been,  was  not  a  ratification  made  by  the  Pope 
singly,  but  a  local  conciliar  acceptance  by  that  Western 
portion  of  the  Church  wherein  the  Roman  Pontiff  held 
undisputedly  the  first  place  of  rank  and  influence. 

It  is  thus  clear  that  all  the  facts  concerning  the  First 
General  Council,  regarding  which  contemporary  evidence  and 
documents  are  producible,  are  altogether  incompatible  with 


158  THE   PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    IV. 

any  supremacy  of  the  Roman  See ;  and,  although  much 
ingenuity  has  been  exhibited  on  the  part  of  Ultramontane 
apologists  in  constructing  an  argument  out  of  such  unpro- 
mising materials,  yet  even  a  slight  examination  shows  it  to 
be  made  up  of  hypotheses,  glosses,  and  inferences,  not  of 
solid  events  of  history. 

The  next  piece  of  evidence  which  the  fourth  century 
yields  is  one  of  those  anomalies  that  are  more  difficult  to 
reconcile  with  Curialist  theories  than  even  an  explicit  rejec- 
tion of  Roman  claims  would  be.  The  Synod  of  ninety-seven 
Bishops,  chiefly  Arian  or  semi-Arian,  which  met  at  Antioch 
in  341,  and  which  had  as  its  almost  openly  avowed  aim  the 
ruin  of  St.  Athanasius,  had  no  Western  prelates,  nor  any 
legates  from  Rome,  present  at  its  deliberations,  but  was 
encouraged  by  the  sympathy  and  attendance  of  the  Arian 
Emperor  Constantius. 

The  Bishops  of  this  Synod  sent  a  letter  which  cannot  be 
styled  other  than  one  of  defiance  to  Pope  Julius,  in  which, 
after  admitting  the  high  repute  in  which  the  Roman  See 
was  held,  as  having  been  a  school  of  the  Apostles,  and 
from  the  first  a  centre  of  piety  (though  even  that,  they  said, 
was  due  to  its  Eastern  teachers),  they  declared  it  to  be 
unjust  that  they  should  be  placed  in  a  secondary  position, 
on  the  ground  that  they  were  surpassed  in  importance  and 
numbers  by  the  Roman  Church,  seeing  that  they,  in  their 
turn,  were  superior  in  merit  and  resolution,  and  they  offered 
Julius  the  choice  of  peace  and  communion  if  he  would 
assent  to  their  decrees,  threatening  him  with  excommunica- 
tion if  he  refused  such  compliance — (Sozom.  Hist.  Ecd.  iii. 
8).  So  far,  no  case  is  made  out  against  the  Petrine  claims, 
anymore  than  by  the  very  similar  conduct  and  language  of 
the  Oriental  Bishops  who  seceded  to  Philippopolis  from  the 
Council  of  Sardica  six  years  later;  for  it  may  be  most 
reasonably  urged  in  reply  that  these  remonstrants  were 
Arian  heretics,  and  that  it  is  no  wonder,  seeing  that  they 
struck  at  the  Deity  of  the  Lord  Himself,  they  should  have 
also  impeached  the  rights  of  His  Vicar.  But  here  is  the 
real  difficulty.     This  Council  of  Antioch  enacted  twenty- 


CHAP.  IV.]    LEGAL  EVIDENCE  OF  ACTS,  CONCILIAR,  ETC.      1 59 

five  excellent  disciplinary  Canons ;  which  were  rejected  by 
Pope  Innocent  I.  about  sixty  years  later  as  the  work  of 
heretics,  but,  nevertheless,  were  recognised  as  being  of  such 
value  that  they  were  practically  adopted  into  the  general 
code  of  the  Church,  and  were  finally  confirmed  as  part  of 
that  code  by  the  CEcumenical  Council  of  Chalcedon,  since 
which  time  they  have  been  embodied  in  the  code  of  the 
Roman  Church  itself.  This  fact,  whose  importance  in  the 
controversy  scarcely  appears  to  have  received  adequate  re- 
cognition, entirely  refutes  the  claim  that  Papal  confirmation 
is  necessary  to  the  reception  of  Canons,  with  all  the  more 
force  because  that  claim  was  first  advanced  by  Pope  Julius 
himself  in  his  reply  to  the  very  Epistle  from  the  Synod  ot 
Antioch  just  cited.  He  alleged  therein  that  "the  eccle- 
siastical law  enjoined  that  the  Churches  should  not  enact 
Canons  without  the  assent  of  the  Bishop  of  Rome  " — 
(Socrates,  H.  E.  ii.  17);  an  assertion  for  which  no  docu- 
mentary proof  is  forthcoming,  and  which,  therefore,  is  pro- 
bably only  his  way  of  glossing  the  principle  of  dispersive 
ratification  just  explained.  Nevertheless,  it  was  precisely 
this  Council,  whose  lawful  character  he  steadily  refused  to 
admit,  whose  Canons,  albeit  rejected  again  by  one  of  his 
successors,  made  their  way  into  such  general  acceptance 
that  the  Council  of  Chalcedon  did  not  hesitate  to  give 
them  that  authority  de  jure  which  they  already  enjoyed  de 
facto,  so  that  their  subsequent  status  shows  that  not  merely 
does  the  want  of  Papal  confirmation  fail  to  annul  a  Canon, 
but  that  express  and  reiterated  Papal  rejection  has  proved 
insufficient  for  that  purpose. 

The  next  weighty  piece  of  evidence  which  the  fourth 
century  has  to  show  is  the  fall  of  Pope  Liberius  in  357, 
when  he  not  only  signed  (under  severe  pressure  indeed, 
and  as  St.  Jerome  tells  us,  Chrofi.  a.d.  357,  through  weari- 
ness of  exile)  the  Arian  creed  of  the  third  Council  of 
Sirmium,  but  also  anathematized  St.  Athanasius ;  an  addi- 
tional incident  which  destroys  the  plea  sometimes  adduced 
by  Ultramontanes  in  mitigation,  that  the  creed  was  patient 
of  an  orthodox  interpretation,  and  was  signed  by  Liberius 


l6o  THE   PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    IV. 

in  that  sense  only.  It  is  curious  to  read  the  gentle,  for- 
giving, and  compassionate  language  in  which  St.  Athanasius 
himself  speaks  of  this  fall,  dwelling  in  preference  on  the 
Pope's  earlier  confessorship  {Ad  Solitar^}  and  then  contrast 
it  with  the  burning  indignation  of  St.  Hilary  of  Poitiers. 
After  setting  down  the  text  of  the  letter  addressed  by 
Liberius  to  the  Eastern  prelates  and  clergy,  wherein  that 
Pope  says  that  "it  pleased  God  to  let  him  know  that 
Athanasius  had  been  justly  condemned,  and  that  he  had 
consequently  expelled  him  from  communion,  and  refused 
to  receive  his  letters,"  St.  Hilary,  on  reaching  the  place 
where  Liberius  speaks  of  the  Sirmian  creed  as  Catholic, 
interjects  a  note  thus — ["  This  is  the  Arian  perfidy.  This 
is  my  note,  not  the  apostate's.  What  follows  is  by 
Liberius."]  What  does  follow  is  the  sentence :  "  This  I 
have  willingly  received  ;  "  whereon  St.  Hilary  again  inter- 
jects— ["  I  say  Anathema  to  thee,  Liberius,  and  to  thy 
accomplices."]  And  after  setting  down  a  few  words  more  of 
the  letter,  the  Saint  breaks  out  a  third  time — ["Anathema  to 
thee  again,  and  yet  a  third  time,  renegade ^  Liberius"],  using 
similar  language  yet  a  fourth  time  at  the  close  of  another 
letter  of  Liberius,  which  he  has  preserved  for  us — (St.  Hilar. 
Ope7'.  Hist.  Frag,  vi.) 

The  importance  of  this  unhappy  event  lies  in  its  illus- 
tration of  the  failure  of  the  orthodoxy,  no  less  than  of  the 
teaching  power,  claimed  for  the  Roman  Pontiff,  as  also  of 
the  manner  in  which  a  great  Saint  and  doctor  could  speak 
of  that  personage.  So  heavy  a  blow  does  this  fact  deal, 
not  merely  to  the  Ultramontane  view  of  the  Papacy,  but 
even  to  the  more  moderate  opinion  of  the  minimising 
school,  that  strenuous  efforts  have  been  made  to  set  aside 


'  It  is  noticeable  that  nothing  in  the  language  of  St.  Athanasius 
points  to  any  consciousness  of  the  destructive  shock  to  the  very 
fabric  of  Christianity  itself  necessarily  involved  in  the  heresy  of  the 
Supreme  Teacher  of  Christendom. 

2  "  Prcrvaricator.^^  St.  Hilary  himself  explains  the  word  elsewhere  : 
**  Nos  proevaricatores  eos  exist  imamus  qui  susceptam  fidem  et  cogni- 
tionem  Deiadeptam  relinquunt." — /«.  Ps.  cxviii.  15,  ii. 


CHAP.  IV.]    LEGAL  EVIDENCE  OF  ACTS,  CONCILIAR,  ETC      l6l 

its  evidence.  And,  accordingly,  even  such  a  temperate 
writer  as  Hefele  deserts  history  for  special  pleading  when 
having  to  deal  with  it,  and  endeavours  to  establish  alike 
the  spuriousness  of  the  Fragments  of  St.  Hilary  (including 
the  letters  of  Liberius  embedded  in  them)  and  the  sub- 
stantial orthodoxy  of  Liberius  {Concilienges.  I.  v.  8i).^ 

As  regards  the  question  of  the  Pope's  actual  complicity 
in  heresy,  the  following  is  part  of  the  ancient  evidence  : — 

a.  St.  Athanasius  himself  cites  for  us  the  words  which 
Constantius  addressed  to  Liberius,  explaining  the  necessary 
result  of  signature  :  "  Be  persuaded  and  sign  against  Atha- 
nasius, for  whoso  signs  against  him  thereby  embraces  with 
us  the  Arian  cause." 

b.  The  Arian  Philostorgius  {Epit.  iv.  3)  says  that  both 
Liberius  and  Hosius  wrote  openly  against  the  term  Hojuoou- 
sius,  and  against  Athanasius  himself. 

c.  Sozomen  {Hist.  Ecd.  iv.  15)  says  that  Constantius 
forced  Liberius  to  declare,  in  presence  of  the  Eastern 
Bishops  and  the  Court  clergy,  that  the  Son  is  not  consub- 
stantial  with  the  Father. 

d.  St.  Jerome  {Chron.  a.d.  357)  says  :  "  Liberius,  teedio 
victus  exilii,  et  in  hcsreticam  praviiatem  subscribens,  Romam 
quasi  victor  intravit." 

e.  The  martyrologies  of  Beda  and  Hrabanus  Maurus, 
speaking  of  St.  Eusebius  of  Rome,  an  alleged  confessor  in 
the  Arian  troubles,  say  :  "  The  birthday  of  St.  Eusebius 
.  .  .  who  fulfilled  his  confession  under  the  "Arian  Emperor 
Constantine,    through    the   machinations   of    the    Bishop 


*  It  is  not  unworthy  of  remark  that  Hosius,  Bishop  of  Cordova,  who 
also  signed  one  of  the  Sirmian  creeds,  though  he  did  not  commit  the 
further  sin  of  anathematizing  St.  Athanasius,  and  though  he  bitterly 
repented  his  fall,  has  never  been  allowed  the  title  of  Saint,  despite  his 
former  eminent  piety  and  services  ;  whereas  the  far  less  distinguished 
and  more  guilty  Liberius  is  so  reckoned,  in  virtue  of  his  Popedom. 
Another  point  is  worthy  of  mention,  that  the  index  to  the  Paris  edition 
of  St.  Athanasius  (1627)  supplies  references  to  the  commendatory 
notices  alone  concerning  Liberius,  and  gives  no  direction  to  the  pass- 
ages where  his  fall  is  mentioned. 

M 


l62  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    IV. 

Liberius,  alike  a  heretic;''  words  substantially  found  also 
in  the  martyrology  of  Ado,  as  they  once  were  in  the  Roman 
Breviary,  from  which  they  were  struck  out  in  the  sixteenth 
century,  when  many  other  falsifications,  all  making  for  the 
Papal  claims,  were  introduced  by  Cardinals  Baronius  and 
Bellarmine.i 

As  regards  the  authenticity  of  St.  Hilary's  Fragments^ 
Bishop  Hefele  himself,  and  Stilting  the  Bollandist,  a  pecu- 
liarly unscrupulous  writer,  are  the  only  persons  who  have 
called  it  in  question ;  and  on  the  other  side  are  reckoned 
such  Roman  Catholic  names  as  Natalis  Alexander,  Tille- 
mont,  Fleury,  Dupin,  CeiUier,  Montfaucon,  Constant, 
Mohler,  Bollinger,  Renouf,  and  Cardinal  Newman,  not  to 
speak  of  the  entire  consensus  of  Protestant  scholars.  The 
objection  may  therefore  be  dismissed  as  having  no  ground 
save  the  inconvenience  of  acknowledging  the  facts. 

The  year  378  supplies  a  leading  example  of  the  manner 
in  which  a  request  from  Rome  to  the  civil  power,  and  a 
cession  made  in  answer  to  that  request,  laid  the  foundation 
of  a  jurisdiction  later  alleged  to  have  been  derived  by  un- 
broken transmission  and  divine  right  from  the  Prince  of  the 
Apostles.  After  Damasus,  by  a  liberal  use  of  rioting  and 
massacre,  had  wrested  the  Popedom  from  his  competitor 
Ursicinus,  the  partisans  of  the  latter,  who  had  good  reason 
to  question  the  legality  of  the  tenure  of  Damasus,  made 
constant  appeals  for  protection  to  the  secular  tribunals. 
Those  who  sided  with  Damasus  convened  a  Synod,  which 
drafted  a  letter  to  the  Emperors  Gratian  and  Valentinian, 
asking  that,  inasmuch  as  they  had  already  given  sentence 
in  favour  of  Damasus  and  banished  his  opponents,  they 
would  continue  to  support  him,  and  that  by  issuing  orders 
to  the  provincial  Bishops  either  to  refer  cases  affecting  the 
Ursicinists  to  judges  named  by  the  Pope,  or  else  to  despatch 
the  suits  for  decision  at  Rome  itself,  should  he  prefer  that 
course.     The  Synod  urges,  as  a  ground  for  extending  this 

^  Cf.  Janus,  The  Pope  and  the  Council ;  Gratry,  Lettres  a  Mgr. 
Dichamps, 


CHAP.  IV.]    LEGAL  EVIDENCE  OF  ACTS,  CONCILL\R,  ETC.      1 6 


favour  to  Pope  Damasus,  that  he  had  shown  his  personal 
loyalty  by  submitting  his  own  claim  to  the  Popedom  to  the 
decision  of  the  Imperial  tribunal,  and  they  alleged  that 
Pope  Sylvester  had  done  the  same  towards  Constantine, 
following  the  example  of  St.  Paul  in  his  appeal  to  Caesar 
(Mansi,  ConciL).  Gratian  accordingly  issued  an  edict,  enact- 
ing that  persons  condemned  by  the  Pope,  or  by  any  Catholic 
Synod,  and  refusing  to  submit,  should  thereupon  be  tried 
by  the  metropolitans  of  the  province,  or  else  be  compelled 
to  appear  at  Rome,  if  summoned  thither,  and,  lastly,  be 
tried  by  judges  whom  the  Pope  should  appoint.  It  will  be 
seen  later  how  a  similar  grant,  of  even  wider  scope,  was 
obtained  by  another  Pope  in  the  following  century,  but  the 
whole  history  of  this  proceeding  points  to  the  creation  of 
an  entirely  new  jurisdiction,  not  the  maintenance  and  sanc- 
tion of  one  previously  acknowledged  and  exercised.^ 

The  next  salient  piece  of  evidence  hostile  to  the  Petrine 
Claims  is,  however,  legally  regarded,  of  far  more  conse- 
quence. It  lies  in  the  history  of  the  Second  General 
Council,  held  at  Constantinople  in  381.  Not  even  such 
pleas  as  apologetic  ingenuity  has  framed  in  support  of  the 
Papal  character  of  the  Nicene  Synod  can  be  adduced  in 
this  instance.  The  Council  itself  is  of  the  very  highest 
historical  and  theological  importance ;  and  it  is  enough  to 
say  on  this  head  that  on  the  one  hand  it  is  the  Creed  then 
recast  and  amplified  which  has  ever  since  been  regarded  as 
the  Christian  symbol  of  highest  and  widest  authority ;  and 
on  the  other,  that  from  the  close  of  its  deliberations, 
Arianism,  which  had  not  only  maintained  itself  up  to  that 
lime  within  the  bosom  of  the  Catholic  Church,  but  had 
once  or  twice  almost  ousted  the  true  flock  from  the  visible 
fold,  was  formed,  in  Cardinal  Newman's  words,  "into  a 
sect  exterior  to  the  Catholic  Church ;  and  taking  refuge 
among  the  Barbarian  invaders  of  the  Empire,  is  merged 
amongst  those  external  enemies  of  Christianity,  whose  his- 


Hardouin,  Cone.  I.  840-843. 
M  2 


l64  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    IV. 

tory  cannot  be  regarded  as  strictly  ecclesiastical" — {History 
of  the  Arians,  third  edition,  p.  405). 

In  the  first  place,  then,  the  Second  General  Council  was 
summoned  by  the  Emperor  Theodosius  alone.  For  though 
the  letter  of  convocation  is  no  longer  extant,  yet  the  Syno- 
dical  letter  of  the  Council  itself  to  the  Emperor,  which  does 
survive,  acknowledges  that  it  was  assembled  by  his  com- 
mand, and  asks  for  confirmation  of  its  acts.  And  no  alle- 
gation of  any  share  in  the  measure  can  be  fairly  made  on 
behalf  of  another ;  for  though  Baronius  does  indeed,  in  his 
wonted  fashion,  assert  that  the  Council  assembled  in  virtue 
of  a  Synodal  letter  from  Pope  Damasus  to  Theodosius, 
extant  in  Theodoret,  H.  E.  v.  9,  yet  Hefele  shows  that 
this  refers  to  a  second  and  minor  Synod  held  in  382 
{Concilienges.  I.  vii.  95). 

Next,  as  Theodosius  was  only  co-Emperor  with  Gratian, 
who  retained  the  Western  part  of  the  Empire  as  his  own 
domain,  the  writs  of  summons  ran  only  in  the  East,  and  no 
strictly  Western  bishop  appears  to  have  been  summoned, 
certainly  not  the  Pope,  who  was  present  neither  in  person 
nor  by  legates. 

Thirdly,  the  first  president  chosen  by  the  Council  was 
Meletius,  Patriarch  of  Antioch,  who  was  repudiated  and 
excommunicated  by  the  Roman  Church,  which  recognised 
his  competitor  Paulinus  as  rightful  Bishop  of  the  See.  And 
what  emphasizes  yet  more  this  entire  disregard  for  the 
judgment  of  the  Roman  Pontiff  is  that  Timothy  of  Alexan- 
dria, albeit  superior  in  precedence  to  Meletius,  did  not 
preside,  although  present  at  the  Council  soon  after  its 
sessions  opened  (Hefele,  ubi  supi'o).  Meletius  held  the 
presidency  undisputedly  till  his  death,  when  he  was  suc- 
ceeded by  Gregory  of  Nazianzus  dliring  his  brief  tenure  of 
the  Patriarchate  of  Constantinople,  and  then  by  Nectarius, 
next  occupant  of  that  dignity ;  a  point  of  some  importance, 
as  marking  the  deposition  of  Alexandria  from  the  second 
rank  amongst  the  Sees  of  Christendom,  which  it  had  held 
up  to  that  time,  and  the  substitution  of  Constantinople  for 
it,  on  purely  civil  grounds;  a  change  more  formally  em- 


CHAP.  IV.]    LEGAL  EVIDENCE  OF  ACTS,  CONCILIAR,  ETC.      l6$ 

bodied  in  the  third  canon  of  this  Council,  which  thus 
contains  in  germ  the  substance  of  the  more  famous  twenty- 
eighth  canon  of  Chalcedon  seventy  years  later. 

The  Acts  of  the  Council  were  confirmed  by  Theodosius 
alone,  and  no  other  sanction  is  hinted  at  as  necessary  by 
the  bishops  in  the  Synodal  letter,  wherein  they  say  to  the 
Emperor :  "  In  obedience  to  your  letters,  we  met  together 
at  Constantinople  ....  We  pray  you  now,  of  your  good- 
ness, to  confirm  by  a  letter  of  your  Piety  the  decision  of 
the  Synod,  that  as  you  have  honoured  the  Church  by  your 
letters  of  convocation,  you  would  thus  seal  its  decisions." 
There  is  not  merely  this  negative  testimony  to  the  lack  of 
Papal  confirmation,  but  the  positive  fact  that  the  Roman 
legates  at  Chalcedon,  when  lodging  their  protest  against  the 
twenty-eighth  canon  of  that  Council,  and  confronted  when 
so  doing  with  the  cognate  third  canon  of  Constantinople, 
declared  that  no  Constantinopolitan  canons  were  recognised 
at  Rome;  while  Leo  the  Great  himself,  writing  to  Anatolius 
of  Constantinople,  tells  him  that  the  document  in  question 
was  never  brought  by  his  predecessors  to  the  knowledge 
of  the  Apostolic  See  {Epist.  cvi.);  and  in  another  letter  to 
the  Empress  Pulcheria  he  goes  much  further,  and  says — 
apparently  referring  to  this  Council,  as  well  as  to  that  of 
Chalcedon : — 

*'  The  consents  of  bishops  conflicting  with  the  rules  of  the  holy 
canons  enacted  at  Nicaea,  we,  in  conjunction  with  your  Faithful  Piety, 
make  void,  and  by  the  authority  of  blessed  Peter  the  Apostle  further 
quash  by  a  general  definition  ;  obeying  in  all  ecclesiastical  causes 
those  laws  which  the  Holy  Ghost  enacted  through  the  three  hundred 
and  eighteen  bishops  to  be  peacefully  observed  by  all  priests  ;  so  that 
if  even  a  much  larger  number  were  to  decree  something  different 
from  what  they  enacted,  it  should  be  regarded  with  no  respect,  if  in 
any  particular  divergent  from  the  constitution  of  the  aforesaid." — 
{Ep.  Ixxix.) 

No  testimony  can  be  clearer  than  this  to  the  express 
rejection  of  the  Constantinopolitan  canons  by  Rome ;  the 
only  point  in  St.  Leo's  letter  to  be  touched  on  in  this  place. 
More  than  forty  years  later  Felix  IIL  omits  Constantinople 
from  the  General  Councils  in  his  letter  to  the  monks  of 


1 66  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    IV. 

Constantinople  and  Bithynia  in  485,  naming  only  Nicaea, 
Ephesus,  and  Chalcedon ;  nor  does  Gelasius  I.  accord  it 
any  more  recognition.  Every  one  of  the  marks  of  authen- 
ticity on  modern  Roman  principles  is  thus  wanting  to  the 
Constantinopolitan  Synod,  and  yet  it  is  neither  rejected, 
like  the  Councils  of  Sirmium  and  Ariminum,  nor  just 
allowed  to  slide  into,  as  it  were,  and  mingle  with,  the 
general  mass  of  authoritative  conciliar  matter,  like  those 
of  Laodicea  and  Gangra,  but  is  reckoned  now  by  both 
East  and  West  as  a  true  (Ecumenical  Council,  and  was 
confessed  as  such  by  Popes  Vigilius  (537-555)?  Pelagius  II. 
578-590),  and  Gregory  the  Great  (590-604).  We  have 
two  distinct  statements,  however,  from  the  last-named 
Pontiff,  which  show  the  different  estimation  in  which  he 
held  the  disciplinary  and  the  dogmatic  enactments  of  the 
Council.  He  says,  on  the  one  hand :  "The  Roman  Church 
up  to  the  present  does  not  possess,  and  never  has  received, 
the  Canons  or  Acts  of  that  Synod,  but  has  received  it  in 
this  respect,  as  regards  its  definition  against  Macedonius  " 
— {Epist.  vii.  34).  But  in  another  place,  now  embodied  in 
the  Canon  Law,  St.  Gregory  says  also  : — 

"  As  the  four  books  of  the  Holy  Gospel,  so  I  confess  that  I  re- 
ceive and  revere  the  four  Councils  :  to  wit,  the  Nicene,  wherein  the 
perverse  doctrine  of  Arius  is  destroyed  ;  the  Constantinopolitan  like- 
wise, wherein  the  error  of  Eunomius  and  Macedonius  is  refuted  ; 
the  first  Ephesian,  wherein  the  impiety  of  Nestorius  is  judged  ;  the 
Chalcedonian  further,  wherein  the  false  teaching  of  Eutyches  and 
Dioscorus  is  rejected,  I  embrace  with  entire  devotion,  I  maintain 
with  the  fullest  approbation,  because  on  these  rises  the  structure  of 
the  Holy  Faith,  as  on  a  squared  stone,  and  therein  consists  the  rule 
of  life  and  conduct  for  every  one." — {Epist.  lib.  i.  Regest.  24.  Cited 
Decret,  pars  i.  dist.  xv.  2.) 

There  will  be  something  further  to  say  on  this  subject 
when  treating  of  the  fifth  century,  but  at  present  it  is 
sufficient  to  concentrate  attention  on  the  remarkable  dis- 
proof of  the  supreme  ecclesiastical  authority  or  even  influ- 
ence of  the  Roman  See  supplied  by  the  fact  that  a  Council, 
which  not  only  had  not  any  Papal  sanction  at  the  first,  but 
which  encountered  positive  rejection  at  Rome  for  nearly 


CHAP.  IV.]    LEGAL  EVIDENCE  OF  ACTS,  CONCILIAR,  ETC.      167 

two  centuries,  should  have  forced  its  way  to  the  very  highest 
rank  and  prescription,  and  be  classed  now  and  for  thirteen 
centuries  past  amongst  the  paramount  title-deeds  of  the 
Catholic  Church. 

A  minor  controversy,  arising  out  of  the  fourth  canon  of 
this  same  Council,  though  of  far  less  crucial  importance, 
may  be  cited  as  showing  the  imperfect  hold  which  Rome 
had  at  that  time  even  on  the  West.  It  declared  the  nullity 
of  the  consecration  of  Maximus  the  Cynic  as  Patriarch  of 
Constantinople,  and  of  all  orders  conferred  by  him  in  his 
episcopal  character.  With  this  view  Pope  Damasus  agreed, 
addressing  to  Ascholius  of  Thessalonica  two  letters  against 
the  claims  of  Maximus.  But  a  number  of  Latin  bishops, 
including  St.  Ambrose,  took  the  opposite  view,  and  held  a 
Synod  in  381,  in  which  they  declared  themselves  in  favour 
of  Maximus,  rejecting  the  title  of  St.  Gregory  Nazianzen  and 
of  his  successor  Nectarius ;  a  difference  not  allayed  till  the 
Emperor  interfered  by  sending  commissaries  to  Rome  to 
attest  the  truth  of  the  Acts  of  a  Greek  Synod  held  at  Con- 
stantinople in  382,  which  affirmed  the  legitimacy  of  the 
election  of  Nectarius,  to  whom  the  Pope  then  gave  his 
adhesion,  as  seemingly  did  all  the  Western  Bishops.  This 
disregard  of  Damasus's  judgment  in  the  matter  exhibited 
by  St.  Ambrose  and  his  colleagues  in  Synod  is  a  matter  of 
which  no  doubt  exists,  as  we  have  the  Saint's  own  letter  to 
the  Emperor  Theodosius  {Ep.  xiii.),  in  which  he  puts  for- 
ward the  arguments  on  behalf  of  Maximus,  and  proposes  as 
the  solution  of  the  difficulty,  not  an  appeal  to  the  Pope,  but 
a  joint  Synod  of  Eastern  and  Western  Bishops,  inasmuch 
as  a  case  concerned  with  the  appointment  of  the  Bishop  of 
so  important  a  See  as  that  of  Constantinople  was  a  matter 
which  affected  the  interests  of  the  whole  Church,  and  ought 
therefore  not  to  be  decided  by  a  mere  part  of  Christendom 
acting  separately.  And  there  is  one  clause  of  this  letter 
which  is  of  the  highest  value,  as  showing  the  true  character 
of  that  appeal  of  St.  Athanasius  to  Pope  Julius  which  is 
incessantly  cited  by  Ultramontanes,  in  despite  of  the  history 
of  Liberius,  as  proving  the  recognition  even  then  of  the 


1 68  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    IV. 

supremacy  of  the  Roman  Pontiff  as  teacher  and  judge  of 
the  Church  universal.  St.  Ambrose  brings  in,  as  a  mere 
illustration  of  that  course  of  a  fair  hearing  in  a  Synod  of 
Eastern  and  Western  Bishops,  which  he  thinks  should  have 
been  taken  with  Maximus,  this  remark  :  [He  would  have 
had  a  right  to  this],  "  even  if  no  Council  had  been  sum- 
moned, according  to  the  law  and  custom  of  our  prede- 
cessors, just  as  Athanasius  of  holy  memory,  and  a  little 
while  ago  Peter,  both  of  them  Bishops  of  the  Church  of 
Alexandria,  and  several  of  the  Easterns  did,  so  that  it  was 
evident  that  they  had  recourse  to  the  judgment  of  the 
Church  of  Rome,  Italy,  and  the  entire  West."  It  was  thus 
not  the  sentence  of  a  single  prelate,  however  august  his  see, 
which  St.  Athanasius  sought  in  his  appeal,  but  the  moral 
support  of  one  geographical  half  of  Christendom.  Another 
phrase  in  the  same  letter  explains  what  amount  of  inter- 
ference on  the  part  of  the  West  in  the  affairs  of  Eastern 
Christendom  was  thought  reasonable  by  St.  Ambrose  :  "We 
do  not  claim  a  prior  right  to  judge  {prcBrogativam  examinis)', 
but  there  ought  to  be  concurrence  and  a  joint  decision." 

And  in  a  Council  held  in  the  next  year,  382,  at  Con- 
stantinople by  a  large  number  of  the  same  Bishops  as  had 
sat  in  the  CEcumenical  Council  of  381,  the  Eastern  Bishops, 
explaining,  in  a  synodical  letter  to  Pope  Damasus  and  other 
Western  Bishops  in  Synod  at  Rome,  their  action  in  the 
matter  of  filling  the  Sees  of  Constantinople  and  Antioch, 
peremptorily  set  aside,  as  an  unjustifiable  intrusion,  for- 
bidden by  the  Nicene  Canons,  the  attempt  of  the  West  to 
have  a  voice  in  these  elections  ;  while  they  also  incidentally 
use  a  phrase  contradictory  of  another  Roman  claim,  speak- 
ing as  they  do  of  "  the  Church  in  Jerusalem,  the  Mother  of 
all  Churches  " — (Theodoret.  H.  E.  v.  9).  This  letter,  ex- 
plicit as  it  was  in  repudiating  not  merely  jurisdiction,  but 
even  interposition,  from  Rome,  was  nevertheless  admitted 
by  the  Roman  Council  to  which  it  was  addressed,  instead 
of  being  treated  as  a  flagrant  act  of  schismatic  revolt. 

This  account  of  the  testimonies  in  the  fourth  century 
against  the  Petrine  claims,  then  just  beginning  to  be  con- 


CHAP.  IV.]   LEGAL  EVIDENCE  OF  ACTS,  CONCILIAR,  ETC.      1 69 

solidated  and  put  forward  by  such  Popes  as  Damasus  and 
Siricius,^  may  fitly  close  with  two  circumstances,  in  them- 
selves of  no  great  importance,  but  interesting  for  the  great 
name  to  which  they  belong ;  namely,  that  St.  John  Chry- 
sostom  was  ordained  in  381  as  reader  by  Meletius  of 
Antioch,  at  that  time  excommunicated  by  Rome,  and  as 
Priest  in  386  by  Flavian  of  Antioch,  also  disavowed  by 
Rome  as  a  schismatic ;  but  neither  of  these  facts  was  held 
to  disqualify  him  from  elevation  to  the  Patriarchate  of 
Constantinople,  to  which  he  was  consecrated  by  Theo- 
philus  of  Alexandria  in  398. 

•  This  Pope  issued  in  386  the  first  authentic  papal  Decretal,  ad- 
dressed to  Himerius,  Bishop  of  Tarragona,  in  reply  to  a  letter  from 
that  prelate  to  Pope  Damasus,  consulting  him  on  various  doubtful 
points  of  usage  in  matters  of  church  discipline.  The  Pope's  reply 
is  that  of  an  authoritative  superior,  who  expects  that  the  Roman 
usages  are  to  be  submissively  followed  everywhere,  and  in  fact  he 
directs  Himerius  to  communicate  the  rescript  to  all  the  Spanish 
Churches.  This  is  a  distinct  step  forward,  though  the  same  claim 
appears  in  germ  as  early  as  Pope  Stephen  I.'s  dispute  with  the  Church 
of  Carthage. 


170  THE   PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  V. 


CHAPTER  V. 

T-ACK    OF   PROOF    FOR   ST.    PETER's    EPISCOPATE   AT    ROME. 

Thus  the  four  great  sources  of  historical  appeal,  to  wit, 
the  wording  of  the  ancient  Liturgies ;  the  glosses  of  the 
early  Fathers  and  Doctors  of  the  Church  on  the  alleged 
Petrine  charter  in  the  Gospels ;  the  Canons  of  all  the  most 
important  Synods  ever  held  in  the  Church  before  the  era 
of  the  Reformation,  including  every  one  of  the  true 
CEcumenical  Councils,  and  the  acts  of  these  same  Synods, 
those  of  Popes,  and  of  eminent  Fathers,  are  all  clear  in  their 
disproof  of  claims  made  for  the  divine  supremacy  and 
infallibility  of  the  occupant  of  the  Roman  See,  even  on  the 
assumption  that  he  is,  in  virtue  of  that  position,  the  suc- 
cessor and  heir  of  St.  Peter  himself — an  assumption  by  no 
means  adequately  sustainable. 

For,  in  point  of  fact,  we  have  no  right  to  make  any  such 
assumption  at  all.  The  contention  on  the  Ultramontane 
part,  it  must  be  incessantly  repeated,  is  twofold  :  that  the 
Papal  claims  are  of  the  nature  of  privilege,  and  that  privi- 
lege one  divinely  revealed.  It  has  been  shown  already 
that  Roman  Canon  law  hedges  every  claim  of  privilege 
round  with  the  most  stringent  requirements  of  documentary 
and  illustrative  proof,  and  within  the  narrowest  limits  of 
interpretation  and  exercise ;  and  also  that  the  tokens  of 
revelation  which  it  requires  in  all  other  cases  are  the  ex- 
press letter  of  Holy  Scripture,  and — in  some  instances  or — 
the  unanimous  tradition  of  the  Church  Universal.  Dreams, 
visions,  miracles,  may  be,  and  often  are,  alleged  as  ground 
enough  for  the  canonization  of  a  departed  believer,  or  for 
the  licensing  of  some  popular  devotion,  but  not  for  the 
establishment  of  any  doctrine  as  an  integral  part  of  the 


CHAP,  v.]     ST.  Peter's  episcopate  at  rome.  171 

Catholic  faith,  much  less  in  proof  of  such  a  strictly  legal 
claim  as  that  of  privilege,  which  from  its  very  nature  can- 
not grow  and  develop  as  a  prescriptive  right  often  may  do, 
but  must  always  remain  within  its  original  limits,  unless  a 
fresh  grant  can  be  adduced.  Thus,  for  example,  an 
English  nobleman  whose  ancestor  had  been  created  a 
simple  baron,  might  gradually  become,  from  the  antiquity 
and  alliances  of  his  family,  from  wealthy  marriages  and 
inheritances,  and  from  a  succession  of  able  and  distin- 
guished holders  of  the  title,  a  personage  and  head  of  a 
house  of  much  greater  social  importance  than  many  per- 
sons of  far  higher  rank  in  the  peerage.  But  that  fact 
would  not  make  him  a  duke,  marquis,  earl,  or  even  viscount, 
unless  a  fresh  patent  from  the  Crown  conferring  that  addi- 
tional dignity,  with  its  attendant  privileges,  were  issued. 
He  could  never  grow  into  a  duke,  though  he  might  grow 
into  being  a  millionaire,  or  the  chief  personage  in  his 
county.  And,  similarly,  no  proof  from  Church  history  of 
vast  powers  actually  exercised  by  the  Popes,  nor  the  clearest 
evidence  of  still  larger  claims  having  been  habitually 
advanced  by  themselves  or  others  on  their  behalf,  is  a 
single  step  towards  establishing  the  existence  of  a  privilege. 
It  is  ample,  and  more  than  ample,  testimony  for  the  growth 
of  a  prescriptive  right,  but  that  form  of  claim  is  specifically 
rejected  and  declared  heretical  as  a  tenet  by  the  Vatican 
decrees,  which  teach  that  there  has  been  no  increase  or 
"  ripening  "  of  the  authority  wielded  by  the  earliest  Pon- 
tiffs, whose  primacy  was,  they  say,  a  supremacy  from  the 
very  first.^  Of  their  own  choice  the  Popes  have  elected  to 
rest  their  case  on  the  "  privilege  of  Peter  " ;  and  even  were 

I  «<  \Ye  renew  the  definition  of  the  General  Council  of  Florence, 
that  the  Holy  Apostolic  See  and  the  Roman  Pontiff  hold  the  primacy 
over  the  whole  world,  and  that  the  Roman  Pontiff  himself  is  the  suc- 
cessor of  blessed  Peter,  Prince  of  the  Apostles,  and  the  true  Vicar  of 
Christ  and  Head  of  the  whole  Church,  and  father  and  teacher  of  all 
Christians,  and  that  full  power  was  given  to  him  in  blessed  Peter  by 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  of  feeding,  ruling,  and  governing,  the  Church 
Universal." — Decret.  Com.  Vatic,  de  Ecclesia. 


172  THE   PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    V. 

not  the  evidence  already  adduced  fatally  adverse  to  the 
existence  of  any  such  privilege — saving  that  honourable 
priority  in  missionary  work  amongst  Jews  and  Gentiles  which 
is  the  peculiar  and  inalienable  glory  of  Simon  Bar-Jona — 
there  are  two  huge  gaps  in  the  further  testimony,  which 
make  the  production  of  a  continuous  chain  of  proof  quite 
impossible.  These  gaps  are  the  lack  of  proof  that  St. 
Peter  was  ever  Bishop  of  Rome,  and  that  having  received 
authority  to  transmit  his  peculiar  privilege,  whatever  it  was, 
to  his  successors  in  that  office,  he  did  in  fact  do  so. 

Let  us  take  these  points  in  order.  It  is  plain,  as  re- 
gards the  first  of  them,  that  Holy  Scripture  is  absolutely 
and  ominously  silent, — nay,  that  it  contains  very  strongly 
adverse  presumptive  evidence.  Not  merely  is  there  nothing 
positive  to  connect  St.  Peter  personally  with  the  city  of 
Rome,  as  has  already  been  mentioned,  except  the  one 
ambiguous  and  disputed  reference  to  Babylon  in  his  first 
Epistle,  but  there  are  certain  negative  statements  which 
are  scarcely  reconcilable  on  any  hypothesis  with  the  Ultra- 
montane assertion  that  St.  Peter  did  actually  sit  as  Bishop 
of  Rome  for  twenty-five  years,  dying  there  as  a  martyr  by 
crucifixion  on  the  very  same  day,  June  29,  a.d.  67,  as  that 
on  which  St.  Paul  was  beheaded.  The  first  difficulty  is 
that  St.  Peter  appears  as  still  residing  at  Jerusalem  in  a.d. 
52,  the  date  of  the  Council  described  in  Acts  xv.  6-30, 
and  considerably  later  as  being  at  Antioch  (Gal.  ii.  11), 
which  does  not  give  time  for  the  five-and-twenty  years 
required,  necessarily  beginning  in  a.d.  41  or  42.  It  is 
possible,  of  course,  that  these  appearances  at  Jerusalem 
and  Antioch  may  have  been  brief  missionary  journeys  back 
to  the  East  from  Rome,  but  that  is  mere  conjectural  hypo- 
thesis, not  Scriptural  proof;  as  also  is  a  modern  theory, 
that  St.  Peter  and  the  whole  infant  Roman  Church  founded 
by  him  in  a.d.  44,  were  included  in  the  expulsion  of  the 
Jews  from  Rome  by  Claudius  in  a.d.  52,  that  some  of  these 
Christians  returned  in  57,  and  also  St.  Peter  himself  to  die 
in  69,  a  year  or  two  after  St.  Paul's  martyrdom,  and 
twenty-five  years  after  his  own  first  visit. — (Mr.  E.  B.  Birks, 


CHAP,  v.]     ST.  Peter's  episcopate  at  rome.  173 

in  the  Academy^  September  15,  1877.)  This  is  a  bold  and 
ingenious  guess,  but  contradicts  much  of  the  scanty  evi- 
dence which  we  have  remaining,  and  notably  the  silence  of 
St.  Paul  and  the  Acts  as  to  the  first  and  second  points, 
which  could  scarcely  have  been  omitted,  as  will  be  noted 
presently.!  The  second  difficulty  has  been  stated  already, 
that  whereas  Rome  was  the  chief  of  Gentile  Churches, 
St.  Peter's  jurisdiction  was  after  a  time  divinely  restricted  to 
the  Church  of  the  Circumcision  (Gal.  ii.  7,  8,  9),  and  could 
not,  so  far  as  we  are  entitled  to  judge,  be  thenceforward 
exercised  over  any  Gentile  Church,  unless  St.  Peter  had 
survived  the  separate  existence  of  Jewish  Christianity, 
instead  of  being  overlived  by  it  for  at  least  fifty  years. 
Thirdly,  the  Epistle  of  St.  Paul  to  the  Romans,  in  the  opinion 
of  the  best  critics,  was  written  about  a.d.  57  or  58.  The 
note  prefixed  to  it  in  the  Douai  Version  assigns  it  to  about 
the  twenty-fourth  year  after  the  Ascension,  that  is  to  say, 
A.D.  55.  But  this  Epistle  is  entirely  silent  as  to  the  pre- 
sence of  St.  Peter  or  of  any  other  Apostle  at  Rome  then 
or  previously.  St.  Paul  expresses  his  longing  to  impart 
unto  them  a  certain  "  spiritual  gift,  to  the  end  that  they 


^  As  the  purport  of  the  Acts  is  to  record  the  genesis  and  develop- 
ment of  the  primeval  Christian  Church,  and  to  give  all  the  really 
important  facts  thereof,  it  follows  that  even  if  the  tradition  which 
brings  St.  Peter  to  Rome  in  a.d.,  42  or  44,  be  true,  that  event  cannot 
have  been  of  any  special  significance,  marking  a  fresh  departure  in 
Church  history.  He  can  have  effected  nothing  more  than  the  con- 
stitution of  a  synagogue  of  Christian  Jews  at  Rome,  this  not  being  a 
sufficiently  notable  circumstance  to  require  mention  as  a  fresh  mis- 
sionary campaign  and  victory.  The  fact  that  the  Second  Epistle  of 
St.  Peter  is  amongst  the  disputed  books  of  the  New  Testament,  and 
that  St.  Jerome,  whose  warm  attachment  to  the  Church  of  Rome 
makes  certain  that  the  opinion  of  that  Church  would  weigh  much  with 
him,  is  one  of  those  who  doubt  its  genuineness  (,De  Vir.  Ilhist,  i.), 
is  strong  presumptive  evidence  against  St.  Peter  having  been  at  Rome 
when  it  was  written.  For  if  he  had  been  there,  the  local  Church 
must  needs  have  been  in  a  p>osition  to  say  whether  he  had  or  had  not 
addressed  such  an  Epistle  thence  to  the  whole  Catholic  Church  ;  and 
this  single  attestation  would  have  ended  the  controversy.  Clearly 
nothing  more  was  known  at  Rome  than  elsewhere  on  the  point. 


174  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    V. 

may  be  established"  (Rom.  i.  ii) — words  which  most  pro- 
bably and  reasonably  denote  his  purpose  to  administer 
Confirmation  to  them,  as  SS.  Peter  and  John  had  done  to 
the  Samaritans — a  grace  {ri  ya^i(j\ia  ivvtv^xariKov  is  the 
phrase  employed)  then  bestowed  by  Apostolic  hands  alone, 
and  incidentally  proving  that,  as  just  said,  no  Apostle  had 
yet  reached  the  imperial  city.  Next,  he  declares  his  readi- 
ness (Rom.  i.  15)  to  preach  the  Gospel  at  Rome  exactly 
as  he  had  done  elsewhere,  and  adds  that  it  was  his  custom 
not  to  preach  in  any  place  where  another  preacher  had 
been  before  him  "  lest  I  should  build  upon  another  man's 
foundation  "  (xv.  20) — that  this  was  a  fixed  principle  with 
St.  Paul  appears  from  another  passage,  where  he  says: 
"  Having  hope,  when  your  faith  is  increased,  that  we  shall 
be  enlarged  by  you  according  to  our  rule  abundantly,  to 
preach  the  Gospel  in  the  regions  beyond  you,  and  not  to 
boast  in  another  man's  line  of  things  made  ready  to  our 
hand"  (2  Cor.  x.  15,  16)  ;  demands  their  obedience  to 
himself  on  the  ground  of  his  rank  as  "  the  Apostle  of  the 
Gentiles"  (Rom.  i.  5,  6,  7;  xi.  13);  and  while  sending 
greetings  to  various  individuals,  families,  and  even  whole 
congregations  in  the  city  (Rom.  xvi.  3-16),  is  entirely  mute 
as  to  any  central  or  presiding  authority  amongst  them,  such 
as  the  bishops  and  elders  referred  to  in  other  Epistles, 
albeit  Andronicus  and  Junias,  "  of  note  amongst  the  Apos- 
tles "  (xvi.  7),  are  named  as  residing  there,  most  probably 
as  prisoners.  This  absence  of  all  mention  of  any  regular 
Church  officers  and  organization  is  alone  enough  to  dis- 
prove the  hypothesis  that  there  was  already  a  settled  Church 
of  Rome  founded  by  St.  Peter  in  a.d.  42.  The  narrative 
in  the  last  chapter  of  the  Acts  brings  the  chronology  down 
some  years  further,  as  far  as  a.d.  61,  but  the  account  of 
St.  Paul's  arrival  at  Rome  contains  no  hint  that  St.  Peter 
came  or  sent  to  him,  and  actually  tells  us  that  the  chiefs  of 
the  Jewish  community  there  had  no  more  certain  acquaint- 
ance with  the  new  sect  than  that  "  everywhere  it  is  spoken 
against  "  (Acts  xxviii.  22) — a  degree  of  ignorance  altogether 
inexplicable  if  the  great  preacher  on  the  Day  of  Pentecost 


CHAP.  V.J     ST.  Peter's  episcopate  at  rome.  175 

had  been  settled  amongst  them  as  a  missionary  for  nearly 
twenty  years.  Nor  does  the  negative  evidence  cease  here. 
Four,  perhaps  five,  of  St.  Paul's  Epistles  seem  to  have  been 
written  during  his  confinement  at  Rome — namely,  Colos- 
sians,  Ephesians,  Philippians,  Philemon,  and  2  Timothy, 
bringing  the  date  down  to  the  very  eve  of  the  Apostle's 
martyrdom  ("  For  I  am  now  ready  to  be  offered,  and  the 
time  of  my  departure  is  at  hand" — 2  Tim.  iv.  6),  a.d. 
65  or  66,  but  there  is  still  the  same  absolute  silence  re- 
garding St.  Peter,  though  St.  Paul  sends  greetings  to  the 
PhiHppians  from  "all  the  saints"  at  Rome  (Phil.  iv.  22). 
He  mentions  in  Colossians  that  his  "  only  fellow-workers  " 
are  his  messengers  to  them,  Tychicus  and  Onesimus, 
together  with  Aristarchus,  Marcus,  Jesus  called  Justus, 
Epaphras,  Luke,  and  Demas — Coloss.  iv.  7,  9-15  ;  and  in 
2  Timothy,  "only  Luke"  is  left  (2  Tim.  iv.  11);  for  which 
reason  he  asks  that  Mark  may  be  brought  by  Timothy  to 
Rome  as  a  worker.  The  entire  unconsciousness  which 
this  chain  of  evidence,  from  a.d.  58  to  65,  displays  on  St. 
Paul's  part  of  a  fact  of  such  first-rate  importance  to 
Christianity  as  St.  Peter's  presence  at  Rome  as  the  long- 
settled  chief  of  the  Christian  community  there,  and  in 
fact  as  head  of  all  Christendom,  must  on  any  hypothesis 
have  been,  requires  that  the  proof  which  outweighs  such 
accumulated  negative  testimony  shall  be  copious,  explicit, 
and  cogent.  As  a  fact,  it  is  so  scanty,  vague,  and  un- 
certain, that  many  eminent  scholars  have  refused  to  believe 
that  St.  Peter  was  ever  so  much  as  even  a  visitor  at  Rome  ; 
but  in  this  they  may  be  suspected  of  controversial  prejudice 
and  bias. 

The  whole  of  the  extant  evidence  on  the  subject  will 
now  be  set  down,  and  an  attempt  made  to  appraise  its 
value : — 

1.  St.  Ignatius  {\  circa  107).— "I  do  not,  like  Peter  and  Paul, 
issue  commandments  unto  you." — Epistle  to  the  Romans,  iv. 

2.  St.  Dionysius  of  Corinth  {circa  165).—"  Therefore,  you  also 
have  by  such  admonition  joined  in  close  union  [the  Churches]  that 
were  planted  by  Peter  and  Paul,  that  of  the  Romans  and  that  of  the 


176  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [.CHAP.    V. 

Corinthians  :  for  both  of  them  went  to  our  Corinth,  and  taught  us  in 
the  same  way  as  they  taught  you  when  they  went  to  Italy,  and  having 
taught  you,  they  suffered  martyrdom  at  the  same  time." — Epistle  to 
the  Roman  Church. 

3.  St.  Iren^us  (t  202). — {a.)  '*  Peter  and  Paul  were  preaching  at 
Rome,  and  laying  the  foundation  of  the  Church." — Cont.  Hceres.  ill. 
i.  I.  i^b.)  "Indicating  that  tradition  derived  from  the  Apostles,  of 
the  very  great,  very  ancient,  and  universally  known  Church,  founded 
and  organised  at  Rome  by  the  two  most  glorious  Apostles,  Peter  and 
Paul." — Cont.  Hares,  in.  iii.  2.  {c.)  "The  blessed  Apostles,  then, 
having  founded  and  built  up  the  Church,  committed  into  the  hands 
of  Linus  the  office  of  the  Episcopate.  Of  this  Linus,  Paul  makes 
mention  in  the  Epistles  to  Timothy.  To  him  succeeded  Anacletus, 
and  after  him,  in  the  third  place  from  the  Apostles,  Clement  was 
assigned  the  bishopric." — Cont.  Hcer.  iii.  3.^ 

4.  Caius,  a  learned  Roman  presbyter  {^circa  200),  cited  by  Eusebius, 
and  conjectured,  not  without  probability,  to  be  indeed  St.  Hippolytus."- 
*'  But  I  can  show  the  trophies  of  the  Apostles.  For,  if  you  go  to  the 
Vatican,  or  to  the  Ostian  Road,  you  will  find  the  trophies  of  those 


1  The  historical  value  of  this  testimony  of  St.  Irenseus  is  much 
weakened  by  a  passage  in  an  earlier  part  of  his  great  work,  where  he 
asserts  that  all  the  elders  who  knew  St.  John  testify  that  Our  Lord's 
ministry  lasted  from  His  thirtieth  year  till  He  was  between  forty  and 
fifty  (II.  xxii.  5)  ;  that  is,  for  more  than  ten  years ;  whereas  we  have 
certain  fixed  chronological  data  in  the  Gospels  to  disprove  this  view  : 
for  the  Baptist's  ministry  began  in  the  fifteenth  year  of  Tiberius  Caesar 
(A.D.  28  ;  or,  if  that  reign  be  counted  from  the  association  of  Tiberius 
with  Augustus  in  the  Empire,  A.D.  26)  and  preceded  that  of  Christ. 
But  Pontius  Pilate  was  appointed  Procurator  of  Judea  in  a.d.  25,  and 
recalled  in  a.d.  34,  and  as  his  government  covered  the  whole  period 
of  Our  Lord's  public  ministry,  the  furthest  possible  range  is  seven 
clear  years,  which  would  make  Our  Lord  still  under  forty  at  His 
death,  which  is  fixed  by  other  data  to  A.D.  30.  And  the  received  view 
of  the  Roman  Church  is  that  A.D.  29  is  the  true  date,  following  the 
statements  of  TertuUian,  St.  Clement  of  Alexandria,  Julius  Africanus, 
and  Lactantius,  thereby  rejecting  the  testimony  of  St.  Irenseus  on  a 
point  where  he  must  certainly  have  had  more  evidence  to  guide  him 
than  in  his  chronology  of  the  Popes  ;  for  although  he  obtained  the 
latter  in  mature  life,  and  almost  certainly  at  Rome  itself,  yet  it  is  clear 
that  the  documents  there,  a  very  little  later,  did  not  agree  with  his 
statement. 

'  Professor  Gwynn,  however,  appears  to  have  proved  by  inves- 
tigation of  the  "Heads  against  Caius,"  that  they  are  distinct 
persons. 


CHAP,  v.]      ST.  Peter's  episcopate  at  rome.  177 

who  have  laid  the  foundation  of  the  Church."^ — Euseb,  Hist.  EccL 
ii.  25. 

5.  Tertullian  {^  circa  218). — {a.)  **The  Church  of  Rome,  in 
like  manner,  makes  Clement  to  have  been  ordained  by  Peter." — 
De  Prascr.  Hcer.  32.  {b.)  "Happy  Church  [of  Rome],  in  which 
Apostles  poured  forth  their  teaching  with  their  blood  ;  where  Peter  is 
made  equal  to  the  Passion  of  the  Lord,  where  Paul  is  crowned  with 
the  departure  of  John  [the  Baptist]." — De  Prcescr.  Hcrr.  36.  {c.) 
*'  The  Romans  ....  to  whom  both  Peter  and  Paul  left  the  Gospel, 
sealed  with  their  blood." — Adv.  Marcion.  II.  iv.  5. 

6.  St.  Clement  of  Alexandria  (f  circa  220)  is  cited  by  Euse- 
bius  (see  later)  as  mentioning  St.  Peter's  visit  to  Rome  to  contend  with 
Simon  Magus. 

7.  St.  Cyprian  (a.d.  250). — "  Cornelius  was  made  bishop  .... 
when  the  place  of  Fabian,  that  is,  the  place  of  Peter,  and  the  grade 
of  the  s.icerdotal  chair,  was  vacant." 

8.  Fragment  of  the  "  Pseudo-Hippolytus  "  {circa  250,  but  in 
truth  a  late  forger}',  borrowed  from  Origen,  see  below). —  "Peter 
preached  the  Gospel  in  Pontus,  and  Galatia,  and  Cappadocia,  and 
Bithynia,  and  Italy,  and  Asia,  and  was  afterwards  crucified  by  Nero 
in  Rome,  with  his  head  downwards,  and  he  had  himself  desired  to 
suffer  in  that  manner." — On  the  Tivelve  Apostles. 

9.  Origen  (f  254). — "  Peter  seems  to  have  preached  to  the  Jews 
of  the  Dispersion  throughout  Pontus,  Galatia,  Bithynia,  Cappadocia 
and  Asia,  who  also,  coming  at  last  to   Rome,  was  crucified  with  his 
head  downwards,  having  of  himself  requested  to  suffer  in  this  manner." 
—  Cotnm.  in  Genesin,  iii.,  ap.  Euseb.  Eccl.  Hist.  iii.  I. 

10.  Arnobius  (t  307). — **  In  Rome  itself  ....  they  have 
hastened  to  give  up  their  ancestral  customs,  and  to  join  themselves  to 
Christian  truth,  for  they  had  seen  the  chariot  of  Simon  Magus  and  his 
fiery  car  blown  into  pieces  by  the  mouth  of  Peter." — Adv.  GenteSy 
ii.  12. 

11.  St.  Peter  of  Alexandria  (f  311). — "Thus  Peter,  the  first 
of  the  Apostles,  having  been  often  arrested  and  cast  into  prison,  and 
treated  with  ignominy,  was  last  of  all  crucified  at  Rome." — Epist. 
Cation.  Can.  ix. 

12.  Lactantius  (320). — **  His  Apostles  were  dispersed  throughout 
all  the  earth  to  preach  the  Gospel  ....  and  during  twenty-five 
years,  and  until  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  the  Emperor  Nero,  they 
occupied  themselves  in  laying  the  foundation  of  the  CKurch  in  every 


*  There  is  an  ambiguity  here,  for  the  terms  "trophy,"  or  "  mar- 
tyrium,"  are  often  applied  to  churches  dedicated  to  the  memory  of 
Saints,  without  implying  that  their  bodies  were  buried  there.  Cf. 
Euseb.  Vit.  Const.  Ivii.-ix. ;  so  St.  Chrysost.  Horn,  xxvii.  in  2  Cor.  ; 
St  August.,  Sermons  296  and  322. 

N 


178  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.   V. 

city  and  province.  And  while  Nero  reigned,  the  Apostle  Peter  came 
to  Rome,  and,  through  the  power  of  God  committed  unto  him, 
wrought  certain  miracles,  and,  by  turning  many  to  the  true  faith, 
built  up  a  faithful  and  steadfast  temple  to  the  Lord.  When  Nero 
heard  of  these  things  ....  he  crucified  Peter  and  slew  Paul." — De 
Mort.  Persecute  ii. 

13.  Apostolical  Constitutions. — "And  Simon  [Magus]  meeting  me, 
Peter,  first  at  Csesarea  Stratonis  ....  there  being  with  me  .... 
Nicetus  and  Aquila,  brethren  of  Clement,  the  bishop  and  citizen  of 
Rome,  who  was  the  disciple  of  Paul,  our  fellow-apostle  and  fellow- 
helper  in  the  Gospel,  I  thrice  discoursed  before  them  with  him  .... 
and  when  I  had  overcome  him  ....  I  drove  him  away  into  Italy. 
Now,  when  he  was  at  Rome,  he  commanded  that  the  people  should 
bring  me  also  by  force  into  the  theatre,  and  promised  that  he  would 
fly  in  the  air,  and  when  all  the  people  were  in  suspense  at  this,  I 
prayed  by  myself. "  Then  follows  the  legend  of  Simon  Magus's  fall. 
Apost.  Const,  vi.  9.  "Of  the  Church  of  the  Romans,  Linus,  son  of 
Claudia,  was  the  first  [Bishop],  ordained  by  Paul  ;  and  Clemens,  after 
Linus's  death,  the  second,  ordained  by  me,  Peter." — vii.  46. 

14.  Clementine  Homilies. — "  Simon,  who  ....  was  set  apart 
to  be  the  foundation  of  the  Church,  and  for  this  end  was  by  Jesus 
Himself,  w  ith  His  truthful  mouth,  named  Peter  ....  having  come 
as  far  as  Rome  ....  by  violence  exchanged  this  present  existence  for 
life.  But  about  that  time,  when  he  was  about  to  die,  the  brethren 
being  assembled  together,  he  suddenly  seized  my  hand,  and  rose  up, 
and  said  in  presence  of  the  Church  :  '  Hear  me,  brethren  and  fellow- 
servants  ....   I  lay  hands  on  this  Clement  as  your  Bishop,  and  to 

him  I  intrust  my  chair  of  discourse I  communicate  to  him  the 

power  of  binding  and  loosing,  so  that  with  respect  to  everything 
which  he  shall  ordain  on  the  earth,  it  shall  be  decreed  in  the  heavens.'  " 
— Epistle  to  St.  James,  i.  and  ii. 

This  is  the  wJko/e  ot  the  ante-Nicene  evidence  now- 
extant  ;  for  though  there  is  an  obscure  reference  to  St. 
Peter's  martyrdom  in  the  Muratorian  fragment,  it  throws 
no  light  on  the  question.^  And  it  will  be  observed  that 
out  of  the  nineteen  passages  of  which  it  consists,  six  men- 
tion only  St.  Peter's  martyrdom  at  Rome,  saying  nothing 
whatever  of  any  relation  of  his  to  the  Church  of  that  city ; 
three  mention  the  legend  of  his  contest  with  Simon 
Magus  as  the  single  interesting  fact  of  his  Roman  sojourn  ; 


*  "  Sicut  et  semote  passionem  Petri  evidenter  declarat  [Lucas],  sed 
et  profectionem  Pauli  ab-urbe  ad  Spaniam  profisciscentis."  Here  St. 
Paul's  connexion  with  Rome  is  implied,  but  not  St.  Peter's. 


CHAP,  v.]       ST.  Peter's  episcopate  at  rome.  179 

fve  name  St.  Paul  in  terms  of  absolute  equality  with  St. 
Peter  in  their  relation  to  Rome,  but  do  not  define  that  re- 
lation in  any  way,  while  one  of  these  five  makes  Linus, 
the  first  Pope,  St.  Paul's  nominee ;  ofie  speaks  of  St.  Peter 
as  having  been  a  worker  of  miracles  and  a  successful 
preacher  at  Rome,  which  one  somewhat  vaguely  describes 
as  his  place  or  see  {locus  Petri) ;  and  just  three  speak  of 
him  as  having  ordained  Clement  as  bishop ;  while  there 
is  only  one  of  these  three  which  plainly  states  in  express 
terms  his  having  been  himself  bishop  there,  and  as  having 
appointed  Clement  as  his  heir  and  successor,  clothed  with 
all  his  own  authority.  But  that  one  is  in  the  apocryphal 
Clementine  Homilies,  condemned  by  Pope  Gelasius  in  the 
Roman  Council  of  496,  and  ever  since  rejected  by  the 
Roman  Church  as  the  forgery  of  heretics.  And  even  it  is 
preceded,  only  a  few  lines  earlier,  by  the  dedication  pro- 
fessing to  be  from  Pope  Clement  to  the  Apostle  James  : — 
•'  Clement  to  James,  the  lord  and  the  bishop  of  bishops, 
who  rules  Jerusalem,  the  Holy  Church  of  the  Hebrews, 
and  the  Churches  everywhere  excellently  founded  by  the 
providence  of  God,  with  the  elders  and  deacons,  and  the 
rest  of  the  brethren,  peace  be  always  " ;  so  that  if  the 
authenticity  of  the  document  were  satisfactorily  proved,  it 
would  follow  that  the  Pope,  albeit  the  successor  of  St. 
Peter,  was  subordinate  to  the  Apostle  St.  James,  as  head  of 
the  Church  of  the  Circumcision,  and,  in  right  of  his  see  at 
Jerusalem,  head  also  of  all  other  Churches  throughout  the 
world.  As  regards  the  two  other  testimonies  to  St.  Cle- 
ment's ordination  by  St.  Peter,  the  modern  Roman  Church, 
by  counting  St.  Linus  first  and  St.  Clement  third  in  order 
of  succession,  implicitly  rejects  them,  leaving  itself  thus 
no  ante-Nicene  witness  except  St.  Irenaeus  (3  c),  from  whom 
however,  it  has  departed,  as  will  be  seen  (and  that  at  least 
so  far  back  as  fifteen  hundred  years  ago),  in  two  crucial 
particulars,  and  thus  has  destroyed  with  its  own  hand  its 
one  solitary  appeal. 

And  it  is  further  to  be  observed  that  the  Apostolical 
Constitutions    contradict   the    Clementine    Homilies    (and 

N  2 


l8o  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.   V. 

indeed  themselves  also)  on  two  important  historical  issues, 
for  they  represent  St.  Peter  as  calling  Clement  already 
Bishop  of  Rome,  before  his  own  journey  thither,  and  St. 
Paul's  disciple,  not  his. 

Finally,  in  that  which  is  the  clearest  item  of  the  testi- 
mony adduced,  that  of  St.  Dionysius  of  Corinth,  that  eminent 
saint  declares  that  the  joint  relation  of  St.  Peter  and  St. 
Paul  to  Rome  was  exactly  the  same  as  that  which  they 
both  bore  to  Corinth,  which  Church  they  had  united  in 
planting  and  organizing.  But  we  learn  from  the  Acts,  and 
from  the  Epistles  to  the  Corinthians,  that  St.  Paul  was  the 
original  evangelizer  and  chief  ecclesiastical  authority  in  the 
Corinthian  Church,  though  St.  Peter's  influence  there  is 
expressly  recognised  also  (i  Cor.  i.  12;  iii.  22),  while  not 
so  much  as  the  vaguest  tradition  points  to  either  Apostle 
as  ever  having  been  locally  Bishop  there. 

Consequently,  no  tittle  of  proof  is  derivable  from  the 
fairly  copious  remains  of  the  ecclesiastical  literature  of  the 
first  three  centuries,  that  St.  Peter  was  ever  Bishop  of 
Rome,  or  that  he  transmitted  the  peculiar  privilege  of 
supremacy  and  infallibility  to  his  successors  in  the  see. 
Yet,  given  the  manifest  importance  of  the  event,  historically 
and  doctrinally,  on  Ultramontane  grounds,  it  must  have 
been  mentioned,  more  or  less  explicitly,  by  the  writers 
cited  above,  and  by  others  also,  if  it  were  true  in  fact. 
And  if  it  be  urged  that  the  destruction  of  early  Christian 
literature  has  been  so  widespread  that  there  may  once  have 
been  abundant  proofs  of  the  matter  in  dispute,  now  lost  to 
us,  the  reply  is  conclusive,  that  in  questions  of  privilege,  by 
Canon  law,  the  document  to  prove  it  must  be  produced, 
and  cannot  be  merely  guessed  at  as  having  possibly  ex- 
isted ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  equally  conceivable 
that  the  additional  testimony,  were  it  extant,  would  be  un- 
favourable to  the  Petrine  claims.  The  documents  we  still 
possess  are  adequate  to  convince  any  mind  not  biassed  by 
controversial  prejudice  that  St.  Peter  ended  his  career  at 
Rome,  "and  by  martyrdom,  especially  as  no  competing 
tradition  exists,  and  to  make  it  at  least  highly  probable  that 


CHAP,    v.]  ST.    PETER'S    EPISCOPATE    AT    ROME.  l8l 

he  had  some  share  in  preaching  the  Gospel  amongst  its 
teeming  myriads,  as  also  in  building  up  the  infant  com- 
munity. There  is,  moreover,  in  much  likelihood,  a  residuum 
of  truth  in  the  story  of  his  contest  with  Simon  Magus 
(though  not  at  Rome,  for  the  oldest  form  of  the  legend 
places  its  scene  in  Asia),  but  more  than  this  cannot  be 
extracted  from  the  ante-Nicene  era,  save  by  relying  on  the 
one  document  which  the  Roman  Church  has  formally  repu- 
diated. As  we  come  lower  down,  the  statements  do  get 
more  precise,  but  it  has  to  be  borne  in  mind,  on  the  one 
hand,  that  historical  testimony  to  matters  of  fact  decreases 
rapidly  in  value  as  it  recedes  further  from  contemporaneous 
evidence,  and,  on  the  other,  that  even  mere  opinions  upon 
such  events  as  would  go  to  increase  the  dignity  and  influence 
of  any  place,  corporation,  or  person,  have  always  a  ten- 
dency to  grow,  to  solidify,  and  to  be  put  forward  as  ascer- 
tained facts  by  those  chiefly  concerned,  without  any  deli- 
berate intention  to  deceive,  but  from  the  natural  working 
of  interested  bias. 

In  the  Nicene  era  itself  the  only  witness  of  importance  is 
Eusebius(t  circa  338),  and  great  as  were  his  abilities,  vast 
as  was  his  learning,  and  unique  as  are  his  services  to 
Christian  literature,  the  fact  remains  that  he  is  a  singularly 
untrustworthy  writer,  who  may  be  compared  to  Burnet  for 
habitual  and  even  wilful  inaccuracy,  and  who  therefore 
cannot,  in  face  of  the  many  errors  which  have  been  de- 
tected in  his  narrative,  be  accepted  as  conclusive  upon 
any  point  resting  on  his  unsupported  statements.  Such  is 
the  judgment  of  critics  like  Scaliger.  What  Eusebius  has 
to  tell  us  is  : 

{a.)  "That  immediately  under  the  reign  of  Claudius  \i.e.  a.d.  42] 
by  the  benign  and  gracious  providence  of  God,  Peter,  that  mighty  and 
great  Apostle,  who  by  his  courage  took  tlie  lead  of  all  the  rest,  was 
conducted  to  Rome  against  this  pest  of  mankind  [Simon  Magus]. 
...  So  greatly  did  the  splendour  of  piety  enlighten  the  minds  of 
Peter's  hearers  .  .  .  that  they  persevered  ...  to  solicit  Mark,  as 
the  companion  of  Peter,  whose  Gospel  we  have,  that  he  should  leave 
them  a  record  in  writing  of  the  doctrine  thus  communicated  by  word 
of  mouth.    .    .    .    This  account  is  given  by  Clement  in  the  sixth  book 


1 82  THE    TETRINFi    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    V. 

of  his  Institutions,'^  whose  testimony  is  corroborated  also  by  that  of 
Papias,  Bishop  of  Hierapolis.  But  Peter  makes  mention  of  Mark  in 
the  first  Epistle,  which  he  is  also  said  to  have  composed  at  the  same 
city  of  Rome,  and  that  he  shows  this  fact  by  calling  that  city,  with  an 
unusual  figure  of  speech,  Babylon." — Hist.  Eccl.  ii.  14,  15. 

{b.)  "The  same  author  [Philo],  in  the  reign  of  Claudius,  is  also  said 
to  have  had  familiar  conversation  with  Peter  at  Rome,  whilst  he  was 
preaching  the  Gospel  to  the  inhabitants  of  that  city.  Nor  is  this  at  all 
improbable." — Hist.' Eccl.  ii.  17. 

(<-. )  "Nero  was  led  on  in  his  rage  to  slaughter  the  Apostles  :  Paul 
is  therefore  said  to  have  been  beheaded  at  Rome,  and  Peter  to  have 
been  crucified  under  him.  And  this  account  is  confirmed  by  the  fact 
that  the  names  of  Peter  and  Paul  still  remain  in  the  cemeteries  of  that 
city  even  to  this  day." — Hist.  Eccl.  ii.  25. 

(</.)  "After  the  martyrdom  of  Paul  and  Peter,  Linus  was  the  first 
that  received  the  episcopate  at  Rome." — Hist.  Eccl.  iii.  2. 

(^.)  "During this  time  [Trajan's  reign]  Clement  was  yet  Bishop  of 
the  Romans,  who  was  also  the  third  that  held  the  episcopate  there 
after  Paul  and  Peter,  Linus  being  the  first  and  Anacletus  next  in 
order." — Hist.  Eccl.  iii.  21. 

(/.)  "After  Evaristus  had  completed  the  eighth  year  as  Bishop  of 
Rome,  he  was  succeeded  in  the  episcopate  by  Alexander,  the  sixth  in 
succession  from  Peter  and  Paul." — Hist.  Eccl.  iv.  i. 

These  six  passages  leave  the  episcopate  of  St.  Peter  as 
indeterminate  as  the  ante-Nicene  citations  do.  Their  one 
support  to  the  Ultramontane  view  is  the  statement  {a)  that  St. 
Peter  was  at  Rome  as  early  s,s  the  beginning  (second  year) 
of  the  reign  of  Claudius,  which  would,  no  doubt,  give  time 
for  the  five-and-twenty  years'  session  at  Rome  afterwards 
ascribed  to  him.  But  Pagi,  in  his  note  on  Baronius  under 
A.D.  43,  shows  that  this  opinion  of  Eusebius  contradicts  the 
chronology  of  the  Acts  (according  to  which  St.  Peter  re- 
mained in  Judaea  and  Syria  till  after  the  death  of  Herod 
Agrippa  I.,  in  the  fourth  year  of  Claudius) ;  the  express 
statement  of  Lactantius  that  St.  Peter  did  not  arrive  in 
Rome  till  Nero's  reign  ;  the  date  in  the  Paschal  Chronicle 
(which  declares  that  the  Apostles  did  not  break  up  their 
College  at  Jerusalem  until  after  the  Council  there  in  the 
sixth  year  of  Claudius) ;  and  the  utter  silence  of  all  ancient 


'YTrorwTroiffswr,  not  extant. 


CHAP,    v.]         ST.    PETER'S    EPISCOPATE    AT    ROME.  1 83 

writers  as  to  the  double  journey  of  St.  Peter  to  Rome 
involved  by  it. 

There  remains,  however,  another  testimony,  going  under 
the  name  of  Eusebius,  which  is  the  real  basis  of  the  Ultra- 
montane claim.  In  St.  Jerome's  Latin  version  of  the 
Chronicon  of  that  author,  under  the  year  40,  we  read  as 
follows  :  "  Peter  the  Apostle,  after  he  had  first  founded  the 
Church  of  Antioch,  is  sent  to  Rome,  and  preaching  the 
Gospel  there,  he  abode  as  bishop  for  twenty-five  years." 
This  agrees  with  the  independent  Armenian  version,  except 
that  the  latter  gives  twenty  years,  but  when  counted  up 
there  are  twenty-seven.  The  Syriac  epitome,  however,  gives 
twenty -five  years.  But  the  Greek  of  George  Syncellus  dis- 
agrees with  the  I^tin  in  several  particulars,  and  runs  thus : 
"  Peter,  the  chief,  having  first  founded  the  Church  at  Anti- 
och, departs  to  Rome,  preaching  the  Gospel,  and  this  same 
person,  after  being  first  of  the  Church  at  Antioch,  presided 
also  over  that  of  Rome  until  his  death." 

There  are  two  or  three  things  to  be  considered  in  esti- 
mating the  value  of  these  entries.  First  of  all,  that  a 
chronicle,  being  intended  as  a  book  of  frequent  reference, 
is  specially  liable  to  alteration  by  copyists,  who  constantly 
add  in  matter  which  they  think  ought  to  be  entered  under 
the  several  years,  and  even  bring  the  annals  down  to  their 
own  date  ;  next,  the  discrepancies  just  cited  ;  and,  thirdly, 
the  entire  silence  of  Eusebius  in  his  own  more  detailed  his- 
tory on  the  points  here  added,  all  which  make  it  tolerably 
certain  that  we  have  here  an  interpolation  of  an  unknown 
scribe  at  some  unascertained,  though  doubtless  early,  date. 
And  Pagi,  following  Baluze,  both  of  them  eminent  Roman 
Catholic  scholars,  suggests  that  the  notion  of  the  twenty-five 
years'  session  of  St.  Peter  arose  from  a  hasty  inference 
drawn  from  the  passage  of  Lactantius  above  cited — where, 
however,  these  twenty-five  years  are  counted  from  the  first 
dispersion  of  all  the  Apostles  on  their  missionary  journeys 
until  the  reign  of  Nero,  and  have  no  special  reference  to  St. 
Peter.  In  the  genuine  narrative  of  Eusebius  it  is  to  be 
noted  that  St.  Paul's  name  twice  precedes  that  of  St.  Peter, 


184  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    V. 

and  their  authority  at  Rome  is  said  to  be  jointly  exercised. 
And  it  is  a  curious  fact,  mentioned  by  Baronius  and  cited 
by  Valesius  in  his  notes  to  Eusebius,  that  on  the  most 
ancient  seals  of  the  Roman  Church,  whenever  SS.  Peter 
and  Paul  are  engravedj  the  right  hand,  or  place  of  honour, 
is  given  to  St.  Paul.  There  is  a  remarkable  gloss  on  this 
fact  by  Cardinal  St.  Peter  Damiani  (t  1072),  explaining  it 
thus  :  that  whereas  Jerusalem  might  rightfully  seem  the 
primary  see  of  Christendom,  and  yet  has  but  the  fifth 
place,  while  Rome  is  first ;  this  is  because  Christ  is  equally 
Head  of  all  Churches,  and  not  of  one  alone,  and  thus 
St.  Peter's  privilege,  in  his  own  see,  gains  priority  for  Rome. 
But  St.  Paul  is  like  Christ,  in  presiding  over  all  Churches, 
not  over  one  only,  and  thus  he  is  given  a  higher  place  than 
St.  Peter  when  they  are  depicted  together. — {De  Picturis 
Principum  Apostolorum.) 

There  is  one  obvious  consideration  which  has  neverthe- 
less been  too  little  regarded  in  this  controversy.  It  is  that 
the  scattered  and  as  yet  clearly  unorganized  and  unofiicered 
Christian  assemblies  in  Rome,  to  which  St.  Paul  wrote  his 
Epistle,  must,  in  all  human  probability,  have  mainly  con- 
sisted of  those  very  Jewish  pilgrims — "strangers  of  Rome" 
(Acts  ii.  10) — who  were  converted  by  St.  Peter's  sermon  on 
the  Day  of  Pentecost,  and  who  would  most  naturally  make 
a  household  word  of  the  great  Apostle's  name,  and  regard 
him  as  in  truth  the  founder  of  their  faith  and  that  of  the 
little  congregation  of  proselytes  whom  they  gathered  round 
them  by  their  informal  preaching  when  they  returned,  and 
all  the  more  because  no  ApostoHc  teacher  reached  them  for 
many  years  after.  This  memory  would,  of  course,  be 
quickened  in  the  minds  of  the  elder  converts  when  the 
Apostle  visited  the  city  at  the  close  of  his  life,  and  his 
death  amongst  them  would  lead,  by  a  most  natural  process, 
to  their  boasting  that  they  were  honoured  above  all  other 
Churches  by  the  presence  of  the  two  greatest  Apostles,  the 
heads  of  the  Circumcision  and  of  the  Uncircumcision,  both 
as  being  their  founders,  and  as  having  won  the  crowns  of 
martyrdom  in  their  midst.     This  is  quite  enough  to  account 


CHAP,  v]      ST.  Peter's  episcopate  at  rome.  185 

for  every  one  of  the  early  references  to  St.  Peter's  share  in 
the  foundation  of  the  Roman  Church,  even  if  a  more  ex- 
haustive reason,  to  be  stated  presently,  were  not  pro- 
ducible.^ 

It  is  not  till  the  post-Nicene  era  that  the  episcopate  of 
St.  Peter  at  Rome  is  clearly  alleged  as  matter  of  fact,  and 
the  first  to  do  so  is  Optatus  of  Milevis  (f  after  386),  who  is  a 
great  deal  more  sure  of  the  details  than  any  of  the  writers  of 
the  three  previous  centuries.  His  words  are  :  "  Thou  canst 
not  deny  that  thou  knowest  that  in  the  city  of  Rome  the 
episcopal  chair  was  first  bestowed  {collatattt)  on  Peter, 
wherein  Peter,  head  of  all  the  Apostles,  sat.  ..  .  .  There- 
fore Peter  was  the  first  to  sit  in  that  one  chair,  which  is  first 
in  gifts,  to  whom  succeeded  Linus,  Clement  succeeded 
Linus,  Anacletus  Clement." — {De  Schism.  Do7iat.  ii.  2,  3.). 

But  his  younger  contemporary,  St.  Epiphanius  (f  403), 
does  not  know  the  story  in  this  form.  In  his  statement  the 
equality  of  the  two  Apostles  is  still  affirmed,  as  in  the  earliest 
of  the  ante-Nicene  writers,  thus  :  "  In  Rome  Peter  and  Paul 
were  also  the  first  Apostles  and  also  bishops  ;  then  came 
Linus,  then  Cletus,  then  Clement,  the  contemporary  of 
Peter  and  Paul,  of  whom  Paul  makes  mention  in  his  Epistle 
to  the  Romans.  .  .  .  However,  the  succession  of  the 
bishops  in  Rome  was  in  the  following  order :  Peter  and 
Paul,  Linus  and  Cletus,  Clement,  &:c."  And,  in  contradic- 
tion to  the  assured  certainty  of  Optatus,  St.  Epiphanius 
states  expressly  that  we  have  no  accurate  knowledge  (ou 
trai'v  iTa(puig  laynv)  as  to  the  succession,  since  there  is  con- 
flicting documentary  evidence  as  to  its  order  and  origin. — 
(^Hcer.  xxvii.  6.) 

'  It  is  noticeable  that  Cardinal  Baronius  uses  substantially  this  very 
same  line  of  argument  to  disprove  the  tradition  that  St.  Peter  per- 
sonally founded  the  Church  of  Antioch.  He  says  :  "  When  we  allege 
that  the  See  of  Antioch  was  founded  or  erected  by  Peter,  that  is  not 
to  be  understood  as  meaning  that  Peter  first  preached  the  Gospel 
there,  for  that  was  done  by  the  disciples,  who  were  driven  from  Jeru- 
salem after  the  death  of  Stephen."  And  he  goes  on  to  say  that  what 
St.  Peter  really  did  for  Antioch  was  to  bestow  precedency  on  it,  for 
M'hich  a  visit  from  himself  was  needless. — Ann.  39,  xvi. 


l86  THE    PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    V. 

Rufinus  of  Aquileia  (f  410) — one  of  the  most  learned 
and  famous  scholars  of  his  time — makes  a  further  statement 
which  is  fatal,  if  correct,  to  the  theory  of  inheritance  from 
St.  Peter.  He  says,  in  his  preface  to  the  Clementine  Recog- 
nitions^ "  Linus  and  Cletus  were,  in  truth,  bishops  in  the 
city  of  Rome  before  Clement,  but  in  Peter's  lifeti^ne  {super- 
stite  Fetro)^  that  is,  they  discharged  the  episcopal  care,  and 
he  fulfilled  the  apostolic  office."  This  view,  it  is  to  be  ob- 
served, denies  implicitly  that  St.  Peter,  albeit  resident  at 
Rome,  had  any  specific  and  local  relation  to  its  see  (any 
more  than  St.  Paul  had  to  Ephesus  or  Colosse),  continuing 
to  act  in  his  general  and  delocalised  apostolic  capacity, 
while  the  two  earliest  Popes  were  not  his  successors,  but 
merely  his  ordinees  and  contemporaries,  bearing  the  same 
relation  to  him  as  Titus  did  to  St.  Paul,  and,  of  course,  not 
enjoying  his  privilege  during  his  Hfetime. 

Another  very  important  fact  in  this  connexion  is  the 
date  assigned  to  the  pontificate  of  St.  Linus  by  the  very 
ancient  Liberian  and  other  catalogues  of  Roman  bishops, 
by  Anastasius  the  Librarian,  and  by  the  older  Breviaries, 
which  agree  in  stating  that  Linus  sat  in  Nero's  reign,  from 
the  consulate  of  Saturninus  and  Scipio  (a.d.  56)  till  that  of 
Capito  and  Rufus  (a.d,  67),  twelve  years.  Two  lists  of 
Popes,  published  by  Mabillon  {De  Re  Diplomatica  and 
Vetera  Analecta),  severally  assign  to  Linus  a  pontificate  of 
eleven  years  three  months  and  twelve  days,  and  of  twelve 
years  five  months  and  twelve  days ;  while  Eutychius  of 
Alexandria  says  {Ann.  sect.  336)  that  "  Linus  was  Patriarch 
of  Rome  after  Peter,  and  died  when  he  had  held  that 
dignity  for  twelve  years ;  and  he  was  the  first  Patriarch  of 
Rome ; "  and  the  Chronicle  of  Nicephorus  has  the  entry ; 
"Peter  the  Apostle,  two  years ;^  Linus,  twelve  years.'' 
Here,  then,  is  a  consensus  of  authorities,  according  to 
some  of  which  Linus  was  Pope  of  Rome  during  twelve 
years  of  St.  Peter's  life,  for  a.d.  67  is  the  most  probable 

I  Probably  a  mere  scribe's  error,  ETHB  for  ETHKB,  as  there  s 
other  Byzantine  authority  for  twenty-two  yrais'  session. 


CHAP,  v.]      ST.  Peter's  episcopate  at  rome.  187 

year  of  the  Apostle's  martyrdom.  And  hence,  if  these 
data  could  be  fully  relied  on,  it  would  be  as  nearly  as 
possible  proved  to  demonstration  that  St.  Peter  either  never 
held  the  local  see  of  Rome,  or  that  he  divested  himself  of 
it  in  favour  of  St.  Linus.  Jn  the  first  case,  the  Papal  claim 
of  special  heirship  breaks  down,  and  Rome  merely  stands 
on  the  footing  of  any  other  city  where  an  Apostle  nominated 
the  first  bishop ;  and,  in  the  second  case,  it  is  clear  that 
St.  Linus,  albeit  Pope,  never  enjoyed  the  "privilege  of 
Peter,"  in  virtue  of  that  office,  so  that  the  two  things  are 
separable  and  need  not  be  united.  It  is  noticeable,  as 
previously  remarked,  that  the  Apostolical  Constitutions  re- 
present St.  Linus  as  predeceasing  St.  Peter.  And  though 
the  Chronicle  of  Eusebius  counts  the  twelve  years  of  Linus 
from  the  death  of  St.  Peter,  in  contradiction  to  the  explicit 
consular  date  mentioned  above,  yet  it  will  be  noticed  on 
examination  that  there  is  some  mistake  in  the  computation 
of  the  regnal  years  of  the  Emperors  just  at  this  place,  which 
seriously  weakens  its  value  as  testimony,  seeming  to  point 
either  to  corruption  of  the  text,  or  to  carelessness  on  the 
author's  own  part.  The  least  that  can  be  said  on  a  survey 
of  the  whole  evidence,  and  of  the  many  attempts  made 
from  the  days  of  Pearson  and  Dodwell  to  Lipsius  in  our 
own  time  to  clear  up  the  chronological  difficulty,  is  that  a 
formidable  gap  exists  here  in  the  links  of  proof  for  the 
descent  of  the  Petrine  privilege,  and  that  no  means  of 
adequately  filling  it  up  are  known  to  exist. 

It  is  St.  Jerome  (t  420)  who  first  collects  into  one  body 
the  scattered  notices  of  St.  Peter  from  Eusebius  and  else- 
where, and  gives  currency  to  the  story  of  his  twenty-five 
years'  session  at  Rome,  thus :  "  Simon  Peter  ...  in  the 
second  year  of  the  Emperor  Claudius,  went  to  Rome  to 
overcome  Simon  Magus,  and  there  occupied  the  sacerdotal 
chair  for  twenty-five  years,  until  the  last  year  of  Nero." — 
{Be  Viris  Illustribus,  i.) 

No  doubt  this  was  the  popular  view  at  Rome  in  the  time 
of  Pope  Damasus,  and  St.  Jerome  most  probably  got  it 
from  the  archivists  there.     But  that  it  represents  a  late 


1 88  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    V. 

and  growing  tradition  appears  not  only  from  the  reasons 
already  mentioned  for  discrediting  it,  but  from  the  still 
more  remarkable  fact  that  in  the  fifth  chapter  of  this  very 
book,  devoted  to  an  account  of  St.  Paul,  St.  Jerome  is 
entirely  silent  as  to  St.  Paul's  having  had  any  share  what- 
ever in  the  foundation  or  the  ecclesiastical  government  of 
the  Church  of  Rome,  contenting  himself  with  mentioning 
the  Apostle's  imprisonments  and  martyrdom  there.  This 
shows  that  already  there  was  a  tendency  at  Rome  to  thrust 
St.  Paul  into  the  background,  and  so  far  to  contradict,  if 
not  to  falsify,  the  testimony  of  all  the  earlier  records,  in- 
cluding the  New  Testament  itself  And  so  serious  an 
omission  in  one  part  of  the  narrative  justifies  the  belief  that 
there  has  been  as  serious  an  accretion  in  the  other  part ; 
even  if  the  long  distance  of  St.  Jerome  himself  from  the 
era  he  is  here  illustrating  did  not,  by  the  unvarying  laws 
of  historical  criticism,  make  his  testimony  of  much  less 
account  than  that  of  the  numerous  writers  who  preceded 
him,  and  knew  nothing  of  this  story,  unheard  of,  so  far  as 
extant  records  permit  us  to  say,  for  three  centuries  and  a 
half  after  the  date  with  which  it  concerns  itself 

Later  on,  the  assertions  regarding  St.  Peter's  session, 
pontificate,  and  supremacy  come  thick  and  fast,  but  of 
course  have  no  evidential  value  whatever;  and  it  must 
again  be  pointed  out  that  nothing  in  the  citations  above, 
which  practically  contain  the  whole  of  the  relevant  extant 
testimony,  is  valid  to  prove,  in  the  legal  fashion  required 
by  Canon  law  for  establishing  a  legal  claim  of  privilege, 
the  fact  of  St.  Peter  having  ever  been  Bishop  of  Rome  in 
any  sense  not  equally  true  of  St.  Paul,  or  having  attached 
any  specific  grant  or  privilege  to  that  see. 

For  ia.)  no  trustworthy  document,  within  six  generations 
of  St.  Peter's  death,  is  producible,  plainly  alleging  him  to 
have  been  Bishop  of  Rome  in  the  received  meaning  of 
that  phrase,  or  to  have  endowed  that  see  in  any  special 
manner. 

{p.)  The  wording  of  such  evidence  as  is  actually  tendered 
is  obscure,  doubtful,  and  contradictory. 


CHAP,  v.]       ST.  Peter's  episcopate  at  rome.  189 

(c.)  A  strict  and  literal  construction  of  its  matter  leaves 
no  ground  available  for  even  a  primacy  of  honour,  not  to 
say  a  supremacy  of  jurisdiction. 

(d.)  There  is  no  allusion  at  all  to  St.  Peter  in  the  Cata- 
combs of  Rome  earlier  than  the  third  century,  and  none  to 
his  Roman  bishopric  till  the  fourth  century  ;  and  none  of 
any  date  ascribing  the  foundation  of  the  Roman  Church  to 
him. 

But  if  the  case  be  so  in  respect  of  St.  Peter  himself,  much 
more  does  the  evidence  break  down  which  is  tendered  on 
behalf  of  his  successors.  It  should  be  enough,  at  the  very 
outset,  to  allege,  as  barring  every  claim  of  the  sort,  two  of 
the  leading  maxims  of  Canon  law  in  questions  of  privilege 
already  stated,  namely,  that  a  privilege,  if  personal,  follows 
the  person,  not  the  q^ce,  and  dies  with  the  person  named 
in  it ;  as,  also,  that  a  privilege  may  not  be  extended  to  any 
other  person  than  the  original  grantee,  because  of  identity 
or  similarity  of  reason,  unless  such  person  be  actually  or 
constructively  named  in  it. 

Now,  in  the  three  Gospel  texts  on  which  the  whole  claim 
of  privilege  is  avowedly  rested  as  constituting  the  Petrine 
charter,  the  gifts  and  power  bestowed,  whatever  they  may 
have  been,  are  personal  and  individual  only  in  the  form  of 
grant :  "  T/io?i  art  Peter  ....  I  will  give  to  ^/lee  the  keys 
....  whatsoever  ^/lou  shalt  bind  ....  I  have  prayed 
for  t^ee,  that  i/iy  faith  fail  not  ....  and  when  //lou  art 
converted,  strengthen  f/iy  brethren  ....  Lovest  ^hou  me  ? 
Feed  [ihoi/]  My  sheep  ....  Follow  thou  Me  ; " — and 
contain  no  clause  whatsoever  which  can  be  construed  into 
a  right  of  transmission ;  whereas  in  the  three  other  Scrip- 
tural charters  of  privilege,  severally  given-  to  Abraham,  as 
head  of  the  children  of  promise;  to  Aaron,  as  High  Priest; 
and  to  David,  as  King  of  Israel,  such  transmission  and 
devolution  by  hereditary  descent  is  expressly  named  and 
provided  for.  St.  Peter's  charter  may  therefore  be  com- 
pared— let  it  be  as  comprehensive  as  possible  in  his  own 
case — to  a  Crown  patent  conferring  a  great  office  of  state> 
such  a^a  viceroyalty  or  chief-justiceship,  held  at  most  for 


190  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    V. 

life ;  and  the  charters  of  Abraham,  Aaron,  and  David,  to 
patents  of  peerage  transmissible  to  descendants.  What 
St.  Peter  did  not  receive  he  could  not  give,  and  no  docu- 
ment conferring  on  him  the  right  to  give  is  producible,  or 
has  even  so  much  as  been  thought  to  have  ever  existed. 
Hence  it  is,  as  mentioned  already,  that  Tertullian  actually 
denies  that  even  the  right  of  binding  and  loosing  sins  could 
be  lawfully  exercised  by  the  Church,  because  the  gift  of 
binding  and  loosing  had  been  bestowed  on  Ve\.tx  personally, 
not  upon  the  Church  in  general,  and  therefore  must  refer 
to  those  acts  which  are  peculiar  to  Peter,  and  done  by  him 
once  for  all,  such  as  his  unlocking  the  doors  of  the  heavenly 
kingdom  by  baptism,  in  which  the  loosing  and  binding  ot 
sins  takes  place,  his  binding  Ananias  and  loosing  the  lame 
man,  and  his  loosing  and  binding  severally  those  parts  ot 
the  Mosaic  Law  which  were  to  be  repealed  or  retained — 
{De  Pudicitid^  xxi.).  Of  course  the  answer  to  Tertullian's 
argument  is  that  the  power  of  binding  and  loosing  sins 
was  bestowed  not  on  Peter  singly,  but  on  all  the  Apostles 
- — a  fact  he  omits — but  his  reasoning  as  to  those  parts  of 
the  Petrine  charter  which  are  not  paralleled  in  the  Gospels 
is  perfectly  sound  Canon  law. 

However,  a  rebutting  plea  may  be  entered  to  this  effect. 
It  is  true  that  there  is  no  power  of  devolution  or  trans- 
mission conferred  on  St.  Peter  by  the  express  terms  of  his 
charter.  But  the  Gospels  are  confessedly  not  exhaustive 
narratives,  and  we  have  no  precise  record  of  the  many 
things  which  Christ  taught  the  Apostles  during  the  Great 
Forty  Days,  some  of  which,  beyond  all  reasonable  doubt, 
they  carried  out  in  such  institutions  as  Confirmation, 
Ordination,  and  the  like,  which  are  also  absent  from  the 
Gospels.  It  is  not  unreasonable,  therefore,  to  suppose 
that  an  additional  clause,  empowering  St.  Peter  to  trans- 
mit his  privilege,  was  amongst  these  supplementary  re- 
velations, and  his  testimony  in  the  matter,  as  an  inspired 
Apostle,  would  be  as  conclusive  as  the  recorded  words  of 
Christ  Himself. 

Very  good.     But  where  is  this  testimony  of  St.  Peter  to 


CHAP,  v.]      ST.  Peter's  episcopate  at  rome.  191 

be  found  ?  Not  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  not  in  either 
of  his  own  Epistles,  not  even  by  tradition  in  any  one  of  the 
apocryphal  writings  ascribed  to  him.  There  is  not  so  much 
as  a  presumable  guess  as  to  whether  he  ever  made  a  grant 
of  the  kind  verbally  or  in  writing,  much  less  as  to  the 
actual  form  of  words  or  acts  by  which  it  was  expressed. 
Once  more,  the  first  and  fundamental  maxim  of  Canon 
law  bars  the  plea,  for  the  document  cannot  be  produced. 
If  producible,  it  ought  to  contain,  in  clear  and  manifest 
terms,  at  least  three  clauses  : — 

(a.)  A  statement  that  not  only  had  his  restriction  to 
the  Church  of  the  Circumcision  been  a  mere  temporary 
arrangement  for  private  convenience,  but  that  his  own 
original  charter  had  been  subsequently  enlarged  by  Christ, 
so  as  to  enable  him  to  transmit  and  bequeath  it. 

{/>.)  That  he,  in  virtue  of  these  fresh  powers,  attached  the 
chief  Apostolate,  as  distinguished  from,  and  in  addition  to, 
the  mere  diocesan  Episcopate,  to  the  See  of  Rome,  when 
taking  his  place  there,  to  the  exclusion  of  Jerusalem, 
Antioch,  and  all  other  cities  and  places  in  which  he  had 
exercised  his  functions,  so  barring  any  claims  on  their 
behalf. 

(c.)  That  he  constituted  the  Bishops  of  Rome  his  heirs 
and  successors  in  the  plenitude  of  his  authority,  giving 
them  jurisdiction  over  all  the  Apostles  who  might  survive 
him,  and  over  all  Churches  founded  by  them  throughout 
the  world. 

Less  than  this  will  not  sustain  the  claims  now  made,  nor 
in  any  degree  satisfy  the  requirements  of  Canon  law,  but  no 
jot  of  it  has  ever  been  even  thought  to  exist. 

Nor  is  the  difficulty  fully  stated  yet.  Even  were  it  pos- 
sible to  surmount  this  obstacle,  another  at  once  presents 
itself.  An  historical  claim  must  prove  every  step,  and  much 
of  the  doctrine  and  usage  of  ancient  Christendom  is  de- 
fended by  some  of  the  very  earliest  writers,  such  as  St. 
Irenaeus  and  Tertullian,  by  appeal  to  the  traditions  of  the 
several  Churches,  and  the  carefully  preserved  records  oi 
the  Episcopal  succession  from  the  Apostles.     It  might  be 


192  '  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  V, 

assumed  that  in  Rome,  the  greatest  city  and  most  important 
see  of  the  ancient  Church,  and  also  a  centre  of  learning  in 
a  lettered  age,  these  records  would  be  so  accurately  kept 
as  to  be  models  of  precise  notation  and  trustworthy 
evidence.  But,  in  point  of  fact,  there  is  great  confusion 
and  obscurity  as  to  the  order,  names,  and  dates  of  the 
earliest  Popes.  The  following  eleven^  or  rather  twelve,  rival 
views  have  come  down  from  remote  antiquity  : — 

1.  The  Apostles,  in  their  lifetime,  made  Linus  Bishop  of 
Rome,  to  whom  Anacletus  succeeded,  and  then  Clement. — 
S.  Irenasus,  Adv.  Hcer.  iii.  3. 

2.  Clement  is  already  Bishop  of  Rome,  amd  presumably 
ordained  by  St.  Paul, /^(^r^  St.  Peter  goes  thither. — Apostolical 
Constitutions,  vi.  8. 

3.  Clement  is  ordained  as  Bishop  of  Rome  by  St.  Peter 
soon  before  his  own  death. — Clementine  Hoitiilies  and  Ter- 
tullian,  De  Prcescript.  Hm-et.  32. 

4.  Linus  is  first  Bishop  of  Rome,  after  the  death  of 
the  Apostles  Peter  and  Paul,  Anaclelus  second,  and 
Clement  third. — Eutychius  Alexandr. ;  Eusebius,  Hist, 
Eccl.  iii.  21. 

5.  Linus,  first  Bishop  of  Rome,  is  ordained  by  St.  Paul : 
Clement,  second  Bishop,  after  the  death  of  Linus,  ordained 
by  St.  Peter. — Apostolical  Constitutions,  vii.  46. 

6  and  da.  SS.  Peter  and  Paul  were  jointly  first  Apostles 
and  Bishops  of  Rome ;  then  Linus,  next  Cletus,  and  then 
Clement,  it  being  uncertain  whether  Clement  was  ordained 
bishop  by  the  Apostles  in  the  lifetime  of  Linus  and  Cletus, 
and  kept  in  reserve  without  a  see,  to  do  occasional  duty  at 
Rome  during  the  absence  of  the  Apostles  on  missionary 
journeys,  or  ordained  by  St.  Cletus  after  their  deaths,  there 
being  historical  statements  both  ways. — St.  Epiphanius, 
Adv.  Hceres.  xxvii.  6. 

7.  Linus  and  Cletus,  first  and  second  Bishops  of  Rome, 
predeceased  St.  Peter,  himself  never  Bishop  of  Rome,  but 
merely  an  Apostle  residing  there,  who  then  ordained 
Clement  in  the  third  place. — Rufinus,  Prcef  in  Recogn, 
Clem. 


CHAP,  v.]      ST.  Peter's  episcopate  at  rome.  193 

8.  Linus  was  first  bishop,  Clement  second,  and  Cletus 
or  Anacletus  third,  according  to  the  current  Latin  opinion 
in  St.  Jerome's  day,  though  St.  Jerome  himself  makes 
Clement  fourth  in  order. — St.  Hieron.  De  Viris  Illustribus 
15.  St.  August.  Epist.  liii.  ad  Getierosum.  Optat.  Milev. 
JDe  Schism.  Do  fiat.  ii.  2. 

9.  Cletus  and  Anacletus  (or  Anencletus)  are  two  distinct 
persons,  so  that  the  order  is,  Peter,  Linus,  Cletus,  Clement, 
Anacletus. — Roman  Branary. 

10.  Linus  was  elected  by  the  people  after  St.  Peter's  death, 
and  followed  in  order  by  Cletus,  Anacletus,  and  Clement. — 
Anonymous  author  of  the  metrical  Five  Books  agaifist 
Marciofiy    bk.    iii.    (probably   St.    Victorinus   of   Pettau,  f 

11.  Peter,  Linus,  Clement,  Cletus,  Anacletus. — Ltberian 
Catalogue,  a.d.  354. 

In  this  catalogue,  drawn  up  at  Rome  itself  under  the 
Pope  whose  name  it  bears,  the  consular  date  for  the  death 
of  St.  Linus  fixes  it  in  a.d.  67.  The  two  lists  in  Eusebius 
(the  Chro7iicon  and  the  Ecclesiastical  History)  make  it 
A.D.  79 ;  and  these  three  authorities  severally  fix  the  death 
of  St.  Clement  in  a.d.  76,  94,  and  100. 

Besides  all  this  amount  of  irreconcilable  variation,  con- 
centrated within  the  brief  space  of  at  most  thirty-three  years, 
there  is  yet  another  most  weighty  fact  to  be  mentioned, 
which  is  that  although  the  tradition  runs  that  SS.  Peter  and 
Paul  were  martyred  on  the  same  day  of  the  same  month, 
yet  there  is  said  to  have  been  an  interval  of  a  whole  year 
between  their  deaths,-  and  St.  Peter  was  the  first  to  die.'* 
This  circumstance  is  not  mentioned  very  early,  but  it  is  in 
chief  possession — there   being  less  precise  statement  the 


*  Other  opinions  are  that  Victorinus  of  Marseilles  or  Victorinus 
Afer  is  the  writer,  but  no  certainty  exists  on  the  subject. 

'  Prudentius,  PeriUeph.  xii.  5  ;  S.  August.  Serm.  xxviii.  ;  Arator, 
ii.  12. 

*  \^  Prima   Petrum  rapuit  sententia  legibus  Neronis.' — Prudent. 
Periit.  xii.  11. 

O 


194  THE   PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  V. 

Other  way,i — and  also  it  is  a  detail  extremely  unlikely 
to  be  added  later ;  whereas  the  superior  dramatic  effective- 
ness of  the  simultaneous  martyrdoms,  celebrated  as  they 
are  on  the  one  day,  most  readily  accounts  for  the  omission 
of  the  interval  between  them,  not  for  any  purpose  of  fraud, 
but  for  greater  picturesqueness  and  impressiveness  in  the 
narrative,  if  not  indeed  from  simple  mistake  as  to  the 
matter  of  fact.  Let  us  see  what  follows  from  these  details, 
regarded  legally,  as  to  the  claim  of  privilege. 

First,  then,  the  utter  discrepancy  of  these  eleven  or  twelve 
different  accounts  of  the  order  of  succession  shows  that  no 
reliance  whatever  can  be  placed  on  the  trustworthiness  of 
the  early  Roman  ecclesiastical  records,  from  which  St.  Iren- 
3eus,  Tertullian,  Eusebius,Optatus,St.  Jerome,  St.  Augustine, 
and  the  compilers  of  the  Liberian  Catalogue  and  of  the 
original  Roman  Breviary,  certainly;  Rufinus,  St.  Epiphanius, 
and  the  compiler  of  the  Apostolical  Constitutions,  most  pro- 
bably, obtained  their  information.  If  they  could  not  settle 
such  initial  facts  as  to  whether  St.  Peter  is  to  be  reckoned 
in,  or  left  out  of,  the  numerical  account,^  whether  St.  Clement 
was  first,  second,  third,  or  fourth  in  succession  from  St.  Peter, 
whether  Cletus  and  Anacletus  are  two  persons  or  one,  or 
whether  St.  Linus  and  St.  Cletus  entered  on  their  office  before 
or  after  St.  Peter's  death,  it  follows  that  the  value  of  their 
evidence  for  St.  Peter  himself  having  ever  been  Bishop  of 
Rome,  or  having  appointed  any  one  to  succeed  him  in  his 
chair  and  privileges,  is  reduced  to  a  mere  nothing ;  and  yet 
no  other  testimony  is  offered  us  except  this  uncertain  local 
tradition,  accepted  as  true  by  writers  at  a  distance  from 

*  It  derives  some  slight  confirmation  from  the  prior  mention  of  St. 
Peter's  martyrdom  by  St.  Clement  {Ep.  ad  Corinih.  i.  5),  seeing  that 
more  stress  is  laid  on  that  of  St.  Paul,  and  if  so,  that  is  the  witness  of 
a  contemporary. 

2  Valesius  notes  :  "Irenseus  and  Eusebius  say  that  Peter  and  Paul 
laid  the  first  foundations  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  but  they  in  no  wise 
reckon  them  in  the  succession  of  the  Bishops "  [eos  in  episcoporum 
ordine  nequaquam  recenscni).  And  again  :  '*  Eusebius  never  reckons 
the  Apostles  in  the  succession  {ordine)  of  Bishops."  In  Euseb,  Hist, 
Ecd.  iii.,  21. 


CHAP,  v.]      ST.  Peter's  episcopate  at  rome.  195 

Rome,  who  either  did  not  verify  their  statements  by  per- 
sonal examination  of  the  documents,  or  found  contradictory 
entries  (as  indeed  St.  Epiphanius  expressly  says  he  did)  if 
they  did  verify  them.  And  the  order  which  has  the  largest 
amount  of  evidence,  such  as  it  is,  has  not  been  followed  by 
the  Roman  Missal  and  Breviary. 

Next,  this  very  carelessness  establishes  a  second  fact,  that 
the  question  was  not  one  of  very  great  importance  in  the 
mind  of  the  early  Church.  The  exact  details  of  the  suc- 
cession at  Rome,  however  interesting  locally,  can  have 
been  thus  of  no  greater  practical  significance  to  the  Christian 
body  at  large  than  those  of  the  order  of  the  Bishops  at 
Colosse  or  Philippi.  No  stupendous  powers,  no  unspeak- 
ably august  inheritance,  could  have  been  thought  to  depend 
on  the  regularity  and  indefeasibility  of  the  Roman  claim  by 
orderly  succession.  And  this  uncertainty  is  all  the  more 
remarkable  when  contrasted  with  the  perfectly  accurate 
knowledge  we  have  of  the  civil  chronology  of  this  very 
time,  with  the  order  and  succession  of  the  Roman  Consuls, 
albeit  then  mere  titular  dignitaries,  of  no  greater  import- 
ance than  a  modern  high  sheriff. 

Thirdly,  if  Linus  and  Cletus  were  appointed  as  Bishops 
of  Rome,  and  predeceased  St.  Peter,  it  is  clear  that  he  did 
not  divest  himself  of  his  "privilege"  on  their  behalf,  so 
that  they  were  in  that  case  Popes  without  enjoying  any 
specific  primacy  in  consequence — a  conclusive  proof  that 
the  privilege  is  not  necessarily  attached  to  the  office.  The 
same  argument  holds  good  if  Linus  was  appointed  Bishop 
during  the  lifetime  of  St.  Peter,  but  survived  him,  because 
even  in  that  case  the  Apostle  must  have  separated  the 
see  from  the  privilege  in  his  lifetime,  and  there  is  no  proof 
that  he  provided  for  their  reunion  after  his  death.  Again, 
if  Linus  was  ordained  by  St.  Paul — with  whom  alone  one 
brief  ^ew  Testament  reference  (2  Tim.  iv.  21)  connects 
him— he  was  Pope  of  Rome  without  having  any  claim 
whatever  through  St.  Peter. 

Fourthly,  if  St.  Peter  did  indeed  consecrate  any  one  of  the 
three,  Linus,  Cletus,  or  Clement,  as  Bishop  of  Rome,  or  as 

o  2 


196  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  V. 

intended  to  succeed  himself  in  any  capacity,  that  very  fact 
is  fatal  to  his  title  to  have  ever  been  bishop  of  the  local  see 
of  Rome  himself,  for  the  ancient  Church  knew  nothing  of 
coadjutor  bishops,  nor  of  a  bishop  resigning  his  see  to 
another,  nor  yet  of  ordaining  any  one  with  right  of  suc- 
cession. Accordingly,  Pope  Innocent  I.  (f  417),  in  a  letter 
to  the  Church  of  Constantinople,  lays  down  that  it  was  an 
unheard-of  thing,  never  done  by  any  of  the  Fathers,  to 
ordain  any  one  to  occupy  the  place  of  another  still  living, 
no  one  having  had  power  given  him  for  that  purpose 
(Soz.  Hist.  Eccl.  viii.  26).  And  indeed  the  Council  of 
Antioch  in  341  had  decreed,  in  its  twenty-third  canon, 
thus  :  "  It  is  not  lawful  for  a  Bishop  to  appoint  another  as 
successor  to  himself,  even  if  he  be  at  the  close  of  life ;  and 
if  any  such  act  be  done,  the  appointment  shall  be  void." 
It  is  scarcely  probable  that  such  a  rule  would  have  been 
laid  down  if  the  Council  knew  of  the  august  precedent  set 
^y  the  Prince  of  the  Apostles  in  the  chief  city  of  the  world. 
And  it  is  not  easy  to  see  how  the  Council  could  have  helped 
knowing  it,  supposing  it  was  a  fact.  The  actual  Canon  law 
of  the  Roman  Church  itself  is  decisive  on  this  head.  It 
lays  down  that  "The  Pope  cannot  choose  his  successor, 
and  if  he  did  choose  him,  the  election  would  be  void.  .  .  . 
The  Pope  is  prohibited  to  choose  his  successor,  not  only 
by  ecclesiastical  law  .  .  .  but  by  the  Divine  and  the  natural 
law.''  And  the  reason  assigned  is  twofold :  Christ  could 
and  did  appoint  St.  Peter  thus,  but  Christ  was  Lord  of  the 
Church,  and  infallible ;  the  Popes  are  mere  stewards  of  the 
Church,  and  fallible. — Ferraris,  Prompta  Bibliotheca,  s.  v. 
'"  Papa,"  i.  I.  A  similar  objection,  by  the  by,  refutes  that 
part  of  the  story  which  makes  St.  Peter  to  have  been 
■diocesan  bishop  of  Antioch,  and  afterwards  to  have  trans- 
ferred his  chair  to  Rome,  for  the  Apostolical  Canons, 
the  General  Councils  of  Nice  and  Chalcedon,  the  Synods 
of  Antioch,  Alexandria,  Sardica,  and  Aries  I.,  all  seve- 
rally condemn  the  migration  and  translation  of  bishops; 
and  Popes  Damasus  and  Leo  the  Great  actually  excom- 
municated ail  bishops  who  changed  their  sees,  especially  if 


CHAP,  v.]       ST.  Peter's  episcopate  at  rome.  197 

to  a  greater  and  richer  city. — (Theodoret,  H.  E.  vii. ;  Leo 
Magn.  Epist.  Ixxxiv.  4.) 

Fifthly,  if  St.  Paul  survived  St.  Peter  by  a  whole  twelve- 
month, and  they  two  were  joint  founders  and  rulers  of  the 
Roman  Church,  in  that  case,  by  all  maxims  of  official 
succession,  the  whole  Apostolic  authority  there  must  have 
been  then  concentrated  in  St.  Paul's  hands,  and  only  he 
could  bequeath  it,  if  it  were  transmissible  at  all.  The  ques- 
tion of  the  order  in  which  two  people,  A  and  B,  who  are 
each  other's  nearest  heirs-at  law,  or  who  inherit  under  each 
other's  wills,  happen  to  die,  is  often  of  great  importance  in 
the  passage  of  property.  For  though  A  and  B  may  be  heirs 
to  each  other,  either  by  kindred  or  by  testament,  it  does  not 
follow  that  X,  the  next  heir  of  A,  must  be  also  the  next  heir 
to  B,  either  at  law  or  under  a  will.  B  has  another  heir  of  his 
own,  Y.  Now,  in  such  a  case  as  this,  if  A  die  first,  B  in- 
herits, and  Y  inherits  in  turn  at  B's  death.  But  if  B  die 
first,  A  inherits,  and  X  takes  it  in  turn  from  him,  while  Y 
gets  nothing.^     Apply  this  rule  to  the  legal  claim  of  privi- 

•  Curious  cases  of  this  nature  come  occasionally  before  the  law 
courts.  It  is  the  rule  of  French  jurisprudence  that  where  two  or  more 
persons  die  at  the  same  time  by  accident,  as  by  fire  or  drowning,  the 
presumption  is  that  the  person  whose  age  and  physical  condition 
seemed  to  promise  the  greatest  power  of  escape  or  endurance  must  be 
held  to  have  survived  ;  while  the  English  courts  always  rule  that  the 
deaths  must  be  accounted  simultaneous.  A  case  of  the  sort  (r<?  Holden's 
Trusts)  was  decided  by  Vice-Chancellor  Malins  in  May,  1878.  The 
captain  of  the  ship  Great  Queensland  made  his  will  in  favour  of  his 
wife,  and  failing  her,  his  daughter,  and  took  them  both  to  sea  with 
him.  The  ship  was  lost,  probably  blown  up  by  fire,  and  no  tidings 
were  ever  heard  of  her.  Hereupon  a  point  of  law  arose.  The  executors 
could  not  tell  who  was  next  legatee,  as  that  depended  entirely  on  the 
order  of  the  deaths.  If  the  captain  held  out  longest,  his  will  failed 
by  the  deaths  of  his  two  legatees  in  his  own  lifetime,  and  he  was  prac- 
tically intestate.  If  his  wife  survived  her  husband  and  child,  then 
her  family,  to  the  exclusion  of  his  relations,  were  the  heirs.  If  the 
child  lived  longest,  then  her  heirs,  that  is  to  say,  the  relations  of  both 
her  father  and  her  mother,  were  entitled  to  divide  the  estate.  The 
court  ruled  that  the  deaths  must  be  held  to  be  simultaneous,  and  the 
legacies  thus  to  have  failed,  so  that  only  the  captain's  next  heirs-at-law 
took  anything,  and  those  who  claimed  through  the  wife  and  child  got 


198  THE   PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  V. 

lege  with  which  we  are  dealing.  No  Roman  authority 
alleges  any  one  of  these  three  things  :  {a)  that  St.  Paul  was 
Pope,  or  inherited  any  Papal  privileges  from  St.  Peter,  since 
he  is  not  reckoned  as  Paul  I.,  that  Pope  sitting  from  757  to 
767  ;  {b)  that  any  Pope  inherited  his  primacy  from  or 
through  St.  Paul ;  {c)  that  St.  Paul  was  subject  to  any  other 
successor  of  St.  Peter  during  the  twelvemonth  which  elapsed 
between  their  martyrdoms.  Nevertheless,  one  of  these 
three  events  must,  on  Roman  principles,  have  happened  if 
St.  Paul  did  survive  St.  Peter,  and  the  next  Pope,  whoever 
he  was,  succeeded  either  before  or  after  the  death  of  St. 
Paul.  Here,  then,  is  a  flaw  in  the  whole  case,  which  effec- 
tually negatives  the  evidence  for  the  Petrine  privilege  of 
the  Popes.  On  the  other  hand,  if  SS.  Peter  and  Paul  died 
on  the  very  same  day,  the  presumption  is  that  St.  Peter, 
who  suffered  the  lingering  death  of  crucifixion,  survived  St. 
Paul,  beheaded  as  a  Roman  citizen,  and  of  course  inherited 
any  joint  rights  from  him  ;  but  this  is  just  what  the  evidence 
contradicts. 

There  is  only  one  even  plausible  solution  of  the  difficulty 
as  to  the  order  of  the  early  Papal  succession,  and  even  it 
does  not  get  rid  of  all  the  contradictions  just  stated.  It  is 
that  the  same  rule  may  have  prevailed  at  Rome  which  we 

nothing.  A  still  more  complicated  case  of  the  kind  was  decided  by 
the  House  of  Lords  in  i860,  that  of  Wing  v.  Angrave,  arising  out  of 
the  wreck  of  the  Dalhousie  in  1853.  A  husband  and  wife  named 
Underwood,  with  three  children,  were  swept  away  by  the  same  wave, 
as  attested  by  the  only  survivor  of  the  wreck.  They  had  left  their 
property  to  their  children,  in  the  event  of  either  dying  in  the  other's 
lifetime,  and  in  the  event  of  those  children  all  dying  before  reaching 
the  age  of  twenty-one,  to  a  Mr.  Wing,  as  residuary  legatee.  He 
claimed  under  the  two  wills,  but  as  there  was  no  tittle  of  evidence  as 
to  which  testator  survived,  it  was  held  that  Mr.  Wing's  claim  was  not 
made  out,  and  that  the  deaths  must  be  treated  as  simultaneous  :  so  the 
estate  went  to  their  heirs-at-law,  though  no  moral  doubt  was  possible 
as  to  the  truth  of  Wing's  contention,  that  one  of  the  two  testators 
must  have  overlived  the  other,  if  by  no  more  than  an  instant,  and  thus 
have  produced  the  condition  under  which  he  claimed  to  inherit.  These 
pases  serve  to  illustrate  the  difference  made  in  the  transmission  of  an 
inheritance  by  the  order  of  death  amongst  the  transmitters. 


CHAP,  v.]      ST.  Peter's  episcopate  at  rome.  199 

have  some  reason  to  believe  was  put  in  force  by  St.  Peter 
and  St.  Paul  at  Antioch,  and  by  St.  Paul  and  St.  John  at 
Ephesus,  namely,  that  the  Jewish  Christians  and  Gentile 
Christians  were  at  first  organized  as  distinct  Churches, 
under  separate  bishops,  exercising  simultaneous,  yet  inde- 
pendent jurisdiction, 1  and  were  merged  in  the  next  genera- 
tion— with  the  one  exception  of  the  Church  of  Jerusalem, 
which  was  ruled  by  Jewish  bishops  till  Hadrian's  time  ^ — 
into  one  Church  under  the  Gentile  bishop.  In  this  case  it 
is  most  probable  that  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul,  keeping  still 
to  the  divinely  appointed  division  of  their  labour,  presided 
over  two  separate  communities  at  Rome,  the  one  attached 
exclusively  to  the  Circumcision  and  the  other  to  the  Gentiles, 
whilst  the  earliest  names  on  the  roll  of  Roman  Bishops  are 
those  of  contemporaneous,  not  successive,  Pontiffs,  but  with 
this  inevitable  conclusion,  that  when  the  separate  Jewish 
Church  merged,  the  whole  body  must  have  come  under  the 
government  of  the  Gentile  Pope,  whose  succession  neces- 
sarily came  through  St.  Paul,  since  the  only  thing  St.  Peter 
without  doubt  enjoyed  separately  from  St.  Paul,  and  might 
therefore  have  handed  down  to  a  third  person  (Cletus,  say, 
or  any  other),  was  his  jurisdiction  over  the  Jewish  Church 
at  Rome,  which,  of  course,  died  out  when  there  was  no 
longer  such  a  Church  existing.  And  the  Pauline  language 
of  the  Epistle  of  St.  Clement — whether  he  were  the  "  fellow- 
worker  ''  named  in  Philippians  iv.  3,  of  which  no  real  proof 
is  extant,  or  not — is  weighty  evidence,  when  coupled  with 
the  statement  of  Apost.  Const  vi.  8,  that  his  ordination  was 
Pauline,  rather  than  Petrine,  according  to  the  competing 
traditions  of  St.  Epiphanius  and  Rufinus,  in  which  case  he 
is  the  particular  link  in  the  Pauline  succession.  However, 
the  manner  in  which  he  speaks  of  the  martyrdoms  of  SS. 
Peter  and  Paul  (laying,  by  the  by,  very  much  more  stress 
on  the  labours  and  eminence  of  the  latter)  implies  that 
those  events  were  comparatively  distant  at  the  date  of  his 

*  Apost.  Const,  vii.  46.     Tillemont,  Mem.  Eccl.  ii.  191. 

*  Euseb.  Hist.  Eccl.  iv.  6 ;  v.  12. 


200  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  V. 

Letter  to  the  Corinthians  {Ep.  i,  cap.  5)  although  in  the 
same  generation,  and  thus  seemingly  disproves  his  own  ap- 
pointment by  either  of  the  Apostles  to  the  see  of  Rome. 
But  that  the  succession  became  exclusively  Gentile  very 
speedily  admits  of  no  question,  and  therefore  the  historical 
presumption  is,  that  there  is  now  no  Petrine  descent  at  all 
in  the  Roman  chair,  that  line  having  died  out  within  the 
first  century  :  consequently  no  transmission  of  the  Petrine 
privilege  is  so  much  as  probable,  even  were  the  continued 
lack  of  the  necessary  legal  proofs  for  establishing  the  claim 
waived  as  an  objection.  The  opinion  that  there  was  a 
double  episcopate  at  Rome  in  Apostolic  times  is  not  a 
modern  one.  Apart  from  the  frequent  mention  of  SS.  Peter 
and  Paul  as  jointly  ruling  there,  the  following  notices  are 
extant : — {a)  In  the  ancient  Liber  Pontificalis  or  Gesta 
Pontificum  it  is  said  :  "He  [Peter]  ordained  two  bishops, 
Linus  and  Cletus,  that  they  might  personally  discharge  all 
the  priestly  ministry  for  the  people  in  the  city  of  Rome, 
while  Peter  had  leisure  for  prayer  and  for  teaching  the 
people  in  sermons."  (h)  St.  Epiphanius  says  {^Hcer.  xxvii.  6) 
that  SS.  Peter  and  Paul  were  first  of  all  at  Rome  both 
Apostles  and  Bishops,  and  that  it  was  reasonable  that  they 
should  appoint  others  in  their  lifetime,  because  it  was  neces- 
sary for  themselves  to  go  on  missionary  journeys,  and  yet 
Rome  could  not  be  left  without  a  bishop.  The  context 
leaves  it  very  doubtful  whether  St.  Epiphanius  thought 
Linus  and  Cletus  to  have  held  office  simultaneously  or  suc- 
cessively, {c)  Rufinus  states  that  Linus  and  Cletus  were 
consecrated  by  St.  Peter  in  his  own  lifetime,  to  discharge 
the  Episcopal  office,  while  he  filled  the  Apostolic  one. 
{d)  Venerable  Bede  (F/A  Abb.  Weremuth)  says:  "The 
histories  hand  down  that  blessed  Peter  the  Apostle  ap- 
pointed two  bishops  in  order  under  him  at  Rome  to  govern 
the  Church.  .  .  ."  The  objection  to  this  view  is  that  no 
duality  of  bishops  there  is  certainly  known  till  the  time  of  the 
Novatian  schism,  and  that  the  Novatians  did  not  appeal  to 
such  a  precedent,  as  they  would  most  probably  have  done, 
if  possible.    Venerable  Bede  is  the  first  to  state  plainly  that 


CHAP,  v.]      ST.  Peter's  episcopate  at  rome.  201 

St.  Clement  was  ordained  by  St.  Peter  as  his  coadjutor  with 
right  of  succession  {Hist.  EccL  ii.  40),  but  that  was  a  com- 
paratively late  usage,  unknown  even  in  the  fourth  century  ; 
for  the  co-existence  of  two  bishops  in  one  see  is  as  explicitly 
condemned  by  ancient  usage  as  translation,  or  as  nomina- 
tion of  his  successor  by  any  bishop,  even  coadjutorship 
being  unknown  (St.  Cypr.  Ep.  52  ;  Theod.  Z^  ^.  ii.  17), 
the  first  unquestionable  instance  being  St.  Augustine's  co- 
adjutorship with  Valerius  of  Hippo  in  395,  and  that,  as  he 
confesses,  contrary  to  Canon  law  (St.  August.  Ep.  no,  aL 
213);  and  thus,  if  the  evidence  of  the  Canons  be  against 
St.  Peter's  nomination  of  Linus,  &c.,  it  may  be  urged  that 
it  is  equally  valid  against  the  joint  episcopate  of  SS.  Peter 
and  Paul.  The  answer  to  this  plea  is  the  legal  maxim, 
Cessatiie  ratione  cessat  ipsa  lex.  There  could  be  no  valid 
reason  for  a  double  episcopate  after  the  extinction  of  the 
Church  of  the  Circumcision,  but  the  convenience  of  such  a 
plan  while  that  Church  still  existed  is  obvious.  Contrari- 
wise, any  objection  which  lies  against  translation  and  coad- 
jutorship must  have  been  always  equally  strong.  And  the 
proofs,  given  above,  of  the  untrustworthiness  of  the  Roman 
archives  and  traditions  leave  the  silence  of  the  Novatians 
but  little  weight  as  countervailing  testimony. 

And  to  the  rejoinder  that  all  this  argument  as  to  the 
failure  of  the  Petrine  succession  is  merely  conjectural,  the 
answer  is,  that  so  also  is  the  argument  for  its  continued 
existence  :  with  this  notable  difference  between  the  proba- 
bility of  the  two  rival  theories,  that  the  anti-Papal  view  has 
these  three  ascertained  bases  to  go  upon,  that  St.  Peter  was 
divinely  restricted  to  the  Church  of  the  Circumcision,  as 
St.  Paul  to  that  of  the  Gentiles  ;  that  St.  Clement's  diction 
and  theology  are  demonstrably  Pauline  ;  and  that  the  simul- 
taneous session  of  Linus  and  Cletus  is  at  least  implied  by- 
three  ancient  authorities;  besides  the  further  merit  that 
this  view  does  offer  a  coherent  and  reasonable  explanation 
of  the  confused  and  contradictory  lists  of  early  Roman 
bishops  ;  whereas  the  Ultramontane  view  is  nothing  but  a 
mere  guess  without  any  ground,  and  gives  up  the  problem 


202  THE   PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [cHAP.  V. 

of  the  conflicting  lists  as  insoluble.  Consequently,  the 
rebutting  plea  is  legally  much  the  stronger,  and  it  is  a  legal 
question,  involving  the  exercise  of  the  widest  and  most  for- 
midable legal  rights,  with  which  we  have  to  deal.  The 
practical  effect  on  the  Petrine  claims  of  the  difficulties 
above  enumerated  may  be  judged  by  considering  how  the 
House  of  Lords  would  have  to  decide  on  a  double  claim 
to  an  ancient  peerage  and  to  a  great  office  of  State  alleged 
to  be  inseparable  from  it  (as  the  High  Stewardship  of  Eng- 
land once  went  with  the  Earldom  of  Leicester),  if  the 
claimant  put  in  ten  conflicting  pedigrees  as  evidence,  from 
which  it  could  not  be  gathered  which  of  three  persons  in 
the  direct  line  of  descent  was  grandfather,  son,  or  grandson, 
and  whether  there  had  or  had  not  been  two  or  more  of  the 
earliest  peers  of  the  line  who  had  never  held  the  official 
dignity.  There  could  be  no  result  possible  save  rejection 
of  the  claim  as  not  proved. 


CHAP.  VI.]  DAWN    OF   THE   PAPAL   MONARCHY.  203 


CHAPTER  VI. 

D.A.WN    OF   THE   PAPAL   MONARCHY. 

The  fifth  century,  itself  the  transitional  period  between  the 
ancient  and  the  modern  world,  more  fitly  here  placed  than 
at  the  later  epoch  of  Charlemagne,  was  also  the  time  when, 
from  a  variety  of  causes,  chiefly  political,  the  vague  and  in- 
determinate influence  and  priority  of  the  Roman  Pontiff 
began  to  be  transformed  into  a  monarchy  over  Western 
Christendom,  at  first  partly  constitutional,  but  gradually 
freeing  itself  from  all  checks  save  that  of  its  own  bureau- 
cracy, and  assuming  the  form  of  a  despotispil  The  collapse 
of  the  Imperial  authority  in  the  West,  as  each  puppet 
Emperor  rose  and  fell  at  the  bidding  of  some  foreign  ruler 
more  powerful  than  he,  the  distance  and  relative  weakness 
of  the  occupant  of  the  Byzantine  throne,  the  anarchy  of 
society  everywhere  as  the  old  order  and  civilisation  was 
breaking  up  and  the  new  deposits  of  alien  races  were  slowly 
crystallizing  into  regular  polities  and  kingdoms,  made  some 
central  unifying  and  statical  influence  a  prime  necessity ; 
and  a  variety  of  causes  united  to  lift  the  Pope  into  the 
vacant  seatj  The  modern  Papacy  is  due  to  no  Divine 
charter, 'iio  Imperial  donation,  not  even  to  an  inevitable 
theological  development,  but  to  a  series  of  political  acci- 
dents, so  to  speak,  bearing  a  certain  imperfect  analogy  to 
the  process  which  in  recent  times  has  set  Prussia  in  the 
chief  place  among  the  Great  Powers  of  Europe.  But  in 
this  chapter,  as  in  its  precursors,  the  aim  will  be  not  so  much 
to  exhibit  proofs  of  the  exercise  of  Papal  authority,  which 
have  been  even  superabundantly  dwelt  on  by  Roman  con- 
troversialists, as  to  record  those  protests  in  act  or  word 
which  demonstrate  that  the  Church  at  large  was  conscious 


204  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VI. 

that  its  rights  were  being  steadily  encroached  on,  and  that 
no  sacred  charter,  no  immemorial  prescription,  could  be 
truly  alleged  as  the  warrant  for  the  new  claims,  almost  as 
successfully,  as  they  were  persistently,  put  forward.  It  is 
necessary  to  repeat  this  warning,  in  order  to  escape  the 
charge  of  unfair  dealing  with  the  evidence,  certain  to  be 
brought  by  such  as  either  do  not  fully  understand  or  are 
unconvinced  by  our  line  of  argument,  and  to  point  out  that 
the  matter  is  analogous  to  a  pedigree  lawsuit  for  a  peerage 
and  estates.  It  is  no  part  of  the  task  of  the  counsel  who 
argues  against  the  claimant  to  deal  with  the  whole  gene- 
alogy, and  to  discuss  the  career  of  each  successor  in  the 
line.  His  work  is  done  if  he  establish  the  existence  of 
serious  gaps  and  flaws,  at  any  points  in  the  course  of 
descent,  which  disprove  the  title  or  even  the  legitimacy  of 
the  claimant.  It  is  of  no  avail  for  such  a  claimant  to  prove 
the  unbroken  regularity  of  transmission  for  a  dozen  genera- 
tions, if  the  marriage  of  his  own  father  or  grandfather  be 
precisely  the  moot  point  on  which  his  right  of  succession 
turns.  And,  in  like  manner,  examples  of  wide  and  power- 
ful influence  exercised  by  the  Popes,  notably  in  the  West, 
can  be  adduced  by  the  hundred,  but  are  rarely  to  the  point, 
because  they  are  in  no  respect  differentiated  from  the  action 
of  other  powerful  bishops.  A  single  illustration  of  this 
principle  may  serve  once  for  all.  Few  arguments,  then, 
have  been  more  frequently  urged  by  Ultramontane  con- 
troversialists than  the  fact  of  the  deposition  of  bishops  by 
the  Pope,  as  establishing  his  claim  to  be  supreme  ruler  of 
the  Church,  and  the  source  of  all  episcopal  jurisdiction. 
But  in  the  Acts  of  the  Council  of  Chalcedon  it  is  expressly 
stated  that  S.  John  Chrysostom,  "going  into  Asia,  deposed 
fifteen  bishops  and  consecrated  others  in  their  stead."  * 
Thus  the  matter  sinks  at  once  to  the  "level  of  ordinary 
patriarchal  jurisdiction,  and  is  of  no  more  avail  as  proof 
than  the  title  of   "Vicar  of  Christ,"  which,   though  now 

*  'liodvvrfQ  dfKairevrt   iTriaKOTrovg  KaQtlXfv,  cnrfXdwv  Iv  Waiq.,   ko* 
txiipoToi'ljTtv  dWovc  dvr'  avrwv. —  Cone.  Chalced.  Act  ii. 


CHAP.  VI.]  DAWN    OF   THE    PAPAL   MONARCHY.  205 

restricted  by  Latin  Christendom  to  the  Pope,  was  formerly 
a  title  common  to  all  bishops,'  and  its  modern  limitation 
was  made  matter  of  protest  even  in  the  Council  of  Trent. 

The  first  important  event  in  the  Church  history  of  the 
fifth  century  which  illustrates  this  ambiguity  is  the  appeal 
made  to  the  Roman  Pontiff,  Innocent  I.,  by  St.  JohnChry- 
sostom,  Patriarch  of  Constantinople,  when  the  conspiracy 
against  him,  begun  and  matured  through  the  vindictive 
malice  of  the  Empress  Eudoxia,  was  running  its  course. 
It  is  unnecessary  here  to  describe  in  detail  the  circum- 
stances which  ended  in  St.  Chrysostom's  exile  and  death, 
or  Innocent's  honourable  share  in  defending  his  cause, 
which  proved  very  useful  to  the  prestige  of  Rome ;  but 
two  incidents,  which  have  been  used  by  Baronius  and 
Bellarmine  as  proving  the  supreme  appellate  jurisdiction 
of  the  Roman  See,  call  for  mention.  In  the  first  place, 
then,  Theophilus,  Patriarch  of  Alexandria,  who  was  the 
principal  tool  of  the  Empress  against  St.  Chrysostom,  and 
who  presided  over  the  Synod  of  the  Oak,  in  which  sentence 
of  deposition  was  passed  against  the  aged  saint,  sent  an 
envoy  to  Rome  with  a  letter  to  Pope  Innocent  announcing 
the  decree.  Happily,  Eusebius,  a  deacon  of  the  Church  of 
Constantinople,  who  chanced  to  be  in  Rome  at  the  time, 
and  knew  something  of  the  character  of  Theophilus,  hearing 
of  the  matter,  at  once  warned  the  Pope  to  be  on  his  guard, 
and  to  wait  for  more  information  before  returning  an 
answer.  Three  days  later  a  deputation  of  four  bishops 
from  Constantinople  arrived  in  Rome,  bringing  three  letters 
for  Innocent :  one  from  St.  Chrysostom  himself,  another 
from  forty  prelates  who  adhered  to  him,  and  a  third  from 
the  clergy  of  Constantinople. 

As  regards  these  events,  the  first-named,  the  notice  sent 
by  Theophilus,  is  not,  even  on  the  face  of  it,  an  appeal  at 
all.  It  does  not  submit  the  sentence  of  the  Synod  of  the 
Oak  to  the  Pope,  asking  for  his  ratification,   but  simply 

'  S.  Basil  M.,  Const.  Monast.  22;  S.  Ambros.  in  I  Cor.  xi.,  lo; 
Quast.  V.  et  N.  T.,  127,  in  App.  0pp.  S.  Aug. 


206  THE   PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VI. 

acquaints  him  with  it  as  a  fact  which  it  concerned  him,  as 
the  other  bishops  of  Christendom,  to  know.  If  Innocent, 
on  his  part,  had  happened  to  depose  any  bishop,  especially 
one  occupying  an  important  see,  it  would  have  been  just 
as  much  his  duty  to  send  notice  of  the  fact  to  Theophilus, 
that  he  might  give  the  necessary  warning  throughout  his 
patriarchate,  lest  the  condemned  person  might  be  inad- 
vertently received  to  communion  by  any  bishop  or  priest 
therein. 

But  the  disproof  supplied  by  St.  Chrysostom's  share  in 
the  transaction  is  more  explicit  than  this.  His  letter  is 
fortunately  still  extant,  and  a  copy  in  Palladius  ^  informs  us 
that  it  was  addressed  not  to  Innocent  singly,  but  also  to 
Venerius  of  Milan  and  Chromatins  of  Aquileia,  the  two 
sees  then  next  in  rank  to  Rome  in  Western  Christendom. 
And  what  he  asks  is  not  that  the  Pope,  in  virtue  of  his 
sovereignty,  shall  decide  the  cause  and  thereby  end  it,  but 
that  all  the  three  bishops  may  jointly  write,  and  declare  by 
their  authority  all  the  acts  of  Theophilus  and  his  faction, 
done  in  St.  Chrysostom's  absence,  and  when  he  did  not 
refuse  any  fair  trial,  to  be  of  no  effect,  but  inherently  null 
and  void;  that  the  censures  of  the  Church  may  be  ful- 
minated against  the  offenders ;  and  that  Chrysostom  and 
the  bishops  of  his  party  may  be  restored  to  their  sees. 
The  next  clause  shows  how  this  last  was  to  be  brought 
about ;  not  by  the  mere  issue  of  a  Papal  rescript,  but  by 
pressure  being  brought  to  bear  on  the  Court  of  Byzantium 
to  grant  a  new  trial,  under  reasonable  conditions  and 
before  an  impartial  tribunal,  to  which  St.  Chrysostom 
promises  to  submit.  The  Pope's  reply  to  the  Saint  is  lost ; 
but  Theodore,  the  Roman  deacon,  has  preserved  its  sub- 
stance for  us,  which  is,  briefly,  that  he  intended  to  treat  the 
decree  of  Theophilus  as  null  and  void,  and  recommended 
the  summoning  of  a  new  Council  of  Eastern  and  Western 
bishops,  such  as  could  have  no  fault  found  with  its  consti- 


DiaL  c.  2. 


CHAP.  VI.]         DAWN   OF   THE   PAPAL    MONARCHY.  207 

tution,  to  try  the  case  afresh.  His  letter  to  Theophilus  of 
Alexandria,  however,  is  extant;  and  therein  he  bids  him 
await  the  convening  of  another  Synod,  and  therein  argue 
his  case  on  the  lines  of  the  Nicene  canons  and  decrees, 
"  which  alone  the  Roman  Church  acknowledges  since,  if 
he  could  win  his  cause  in  that  fashion,  it  would  make  the 
justice  of  his  plea  clear  and  indisputable. 

No  plainer  admission  is  necessary  that  the  Pope  knew 
that  the  final  decision  did  not  rest  with  him ;  and  that 
whatever  right  of  interference  the  comity  of  the  Church 
Universal  might  allow  to  his  eminent  rank,  nothing  like 
supreme  authority  was  vested  in  his  person. 

And  this  practical  abdication  of  claims  as  of  right  over 
the  East  comes  all  the  more  saliently  forward  when  con- 
trasted with  the  very  large  demands  which  the  same  Pope 
made  almost  simultaneously  on  some  of  the  Western 
Churches.  The  vast  diocese  of  Eastern  Illyricum  had 
been  gradually  brought  under  the  Roman  obedience,  and 
had  submitted  to  the  visitatorial  authority  of  four  successive 
Pontiffs.  In  414,  some  of  its  bishops,  who  had  applied  to 
Innocent  earlier  for  guidance  on  some  points  of  discipline, 
wrote  to  him  a  second  time  on  the  same  topic,  not  having 
carried  out  his  former  directions.  He  replied  very  austerely, 
saying,  "  I  had  previously  taken  your  doubts  into  considera- 
tion, and  now  I  adjudge  it  to  be  an  insult  to  the  Apostolic 
See  that  any  hesitation  should  have  occurred  in  a  matter 
referred  to  and  decided  by  that  See,  luhich  is  the  head  of  all 
Churches}    Again,  writing  in  415  to  Exuperius,  Bishop  of 

'  Hardouin,  Cotic.  i.  1015.  It  must  suffice  to  say  here,  once  for  all, 
that  the  dealings  of  successive  Popes  with  Eastern  Illyricum  were  the 
chief  means  whereby  precedents  were  created  for  the  institution  of 
Papal  vicars  or  resident  legates  (the  first  of  whom  was  Rufus  of 
Thessalonica,  appointed  by  Innocent),  for  evoking  appeals  before  these 
vicars  in  their  capacity  as  representatives  of  the  Pope,  and  for  transmitting 
all  more  important  matters  to  Rome  itself  for  final  decision  :  all  which 
steps  for  the  advancement  of  the  papal  prerogative  were  taken  in  this 
province  earlier  than  elsewhere  ;  and,  from  local  causes,  with  none  of 
the  checks  and  resistance  which  met  the  Popes  in  Africa  and  Gaul 
when  encroaching  on  local  rights. 


208  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VI. 

Toulouse,  he  lays  down  the  maxim  that  in  all  cases  of 
difficulty  and  doubt  or  conflicting  usage,  it  is  the  bounden 
duty  of  all  Churches  to  resort  to  and  abide  by  the  decision 
of  the  Apostolic  See,  as  the  fountain  head  of  genuine 
tradition.!  And  in  a  decretal  addressed  to  Decentius  of 
Gubbio  in  414  he  alleges  that  it  is  notorious  that  St.  Peter 
and  his  successors  alone  constituted  bishops  and  founded 
Churches  in  all  the  Gauls,  in  Spain,  Africa,  Sicily  and 
the  neighbouring  islands ;  and  that  whatever  is  the  local 
Church  usage  at  Eome  is  therefore  sufficient  for  the 
instruction  of  Decentius  as  to  what  he  should  do. 

This  claim,  of  which  no  whisper  is  discoverable  earlier 
(though  it  is  implied  in  the  forged  Epistles  of  St. 
Clement  of  Rome,  included  in  the  False  Decretals), 
attests  the  gradual  manufacture  of  a  factitious  tradition 
at  Rome,  and  a  very  long  stride  forward  in  the  Papal 
pretensions,  being  the  first  germ  of  the  later  assertion 
that  Rome  is  the  Mother,  as  well  as  the  mistress,  of  all 
Churches.  The  Pope's  own  singular  lapse  of  memory  in 
the  matter,  if  no  harsher  judgment  be  passed  upon  him,  is 
shown  by  his  entire  omission  of  St.  Paul  as  having  had  any 
share  in  building  up  Western  Christendom,  and  by  his 
claim  over  Gaul,  whose  evangelization  was  universally 
admitted  in  his  time,  as  in  ours,  to  be  due  to  the  Church 
of  Smyrna,  through  the  agency  of  St.  Polycarp,  whose 
envoys  planted  the  Church  of  Lyons.  And  with  reference 
to  his  assertion  that  the  customs  of  the  Roman  Church 
should  by  right  prevail  as  the  rule  at  Gubbio  and  every- 
where else,  there  is  a  special  aptness  in  quoting  the  con- 
temporary letter  of  St.  Jerome  to  Evagrius  or  Evangelus  : — 

"  If  you  look  for  authority,  the  whole  world  is  greater  than  the  City 
[of  Rome].  Wherever  a  bishop  is,  whether  at  Rome  or  at  Gubbio,  at 
Constantinople  or  at  Reggio,  at  Alexandria  or  at  Thanis,  he  is  of  the 
same  dignity  and  the  same  priesthood  ;  the  power  of  wealth  or  the 
lowness  of  poverty  does  not  make  a  bishop  higher  or  lower,  but  all  are 
the  successors  of  the  Apostles.  .  .  .  But  you  say  that  at  Rome  a 
priest  is  ordained  on  the  testimony  of  a  deacon.     Why  do  you  quote 

^  ITardouin,  Cone.  i.  1003. 


CHAP.  VI.]         DAWN   OF   THE    PAPAL   MONARCHY.  209 

to  me  the  custom  of  a  single  city?  Why  do  you  urge  the  small 
number  [of  the  Roman  deacons],  as  if  it  were  amongst  the  laws  of  the 
Church?" 

However,  as  Gubbio  did  lie  within  the  limits  of  the 
Roman  patriarchate,  there  is  some  palliation  for  Innocent's 
attitude  towards  its  bishop.  No  such  excuse  can  be  alleged 
in  favour  of  his  dexterous  transformation  of  an  ordinary 
notice  from  the  African  Churches  into  a  precedent  of  sub- 
mission. The  Synods  of  Carthage  and  of  Milevis,  held  in 
416  under  the  influence  of  St.  Augustine,  had  formally 
condemned  Pelagianism  as  a  heresy,  and  sent  the  cus- 
tomary notice  to  the  Pope,  asking  for  his  ratification  of 
the  decrees.  This  was  not  merely  the  usual,  but  the 
necessary,  proceeding,  according  to  the  ecclesiastical  laws 
of  the  time,  that  no  part  of  the  Christian  commonwealth 
might  appear  to  act  apart  from  and  independently  of  the 
others ;  only,  such  notice  of  conciliar  proceedings  was  sent 
to  every  great  Church,  and  was  as  much  due  from  the 
Roman  Pontiff,  when  any  Synod  had  been  held  within  his 
local  jurisdiction,  as  from  any  other  authority  to  him.  But 
Innocent  treated  this  customary  act  of  comity  as  a  special 
act  of  submission  to  the  Roman  See,  in  spite  of  the  very 
clear,  though  complimentary,  diplomatic  language  of  the 
African  missives,  which  ran  in  the  following  terms  :  The 
Fathers  of  Carthage  say,  "  We  have  anathematized  Pelagius 
and  Caelestius  ....  Sir  and  Brother  {Domine  Frater)^  and 
have  thought  fit  to  inform  you  of  it,  that  to  the  decrees 
of  our  mediocrity  might  be  added  the  authority  of  the 
Apostolic  See."  And  towards  the  close  of  their  letter,  less 
ambiguously,  after  mentioning  the  grounds  of  their  decree, 
they  add,  "  And  even  if  it  have  seemed  to  your  venerable 
self  that  Pelagius  was  rightly  acquitted  by  the  episcopal 
action  in  the  East,  yet  this  error  and  impiety,  which  has 
now  so  many  abettors  scattered  everywhere,  ought  to  be 
anathematized  by  the  authority  of  the  Apostolic  See."i 

'  St.  August.  Ep.  175. 
p 


2IO  THE   PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VI. 

Here,  then,  amidst  much  polite  deference  of  expression, 
is  a  very  plain  hint  to  the  Pope  that  his  judgment  so  far 
has  been  erroneous — (in  point  of  fact,  he  had  let  Pelagius 
teach  as  he  pleased  in  Rome  itself  for  several  years,  so  that 
the  spread  of  the  heresy  was  due  to  his  negligence  or 
ignorance,  unchecked  as  it  was  till,  removing  from  Rome 
about  412,  Pelagius  encountered  St.  Jerome  in  Palestine 
and  Caelestius  St.  Augustine  in  Africa) — and  a  still  plainer 
intimation  of  what  his  duty  should  lead  him  to  do.  There 
could,  therefore,  be  no  doubt  in  Innocent's  mind  as  to  the 
true  character  of  the  message.  Nevertheless,  in  his  reply, 
he  adroitly  assumes  that  they  were  consulting  him  in  order 
to  obtain  his  permission  to  validate  their  acts,  and  that 
they  were  now  submitting  their  decision  to  his  final 
approval.  Some  extracts  from  his  two  letters  to  Carthage 
and  Milevis  will  best  illustrate  the  matter : — 

"You  have  acted  in  the  true  method,  holding  to  the  pattern  of 
ancient  tradition,  and  being  mindful  of  Church  discipline,  in  determin- 
ing to  refer  the  matter  to  our  judgment,  knowing  what  is  due  to  the 
Apostolic  See — seeing  that  all  of  us  [Popes]  set  in  this  place  desire  to 
follow  the  Apostle  himself — whence  the  episcopate  itself  and  all  the 
authority  of  its  name  has  flowed.  .  .  .  But  you  have  not  thought  fit 
to  trample  under  foot  those  institutions  of  the  Fathers  which  you 
guard  with  your  priestly  office,  decreed  by  them  not  of  human  but  of 
the  Divine  will,  that  whatever  may  be  done  in  provinces,  however 
separate  or  remote,  they  should  not  account  concluded  till  it  had  come 
to  the  knowledge  of  this  See,  that  every  righteous  finding  might  be 
established  with  its  whole  authority,  and  that  all  other  Churches 
might  thence  take  what  they  should  teach,  &c.,  just  as  all  waters  issue 
from  their  native  fountain.  .  .  .  You  have  diligently  and  wisely  con- 
sulted the  sanctuary  [arcana]  of  Apostolic  honour  (that  honour,  I  say, 
to  which,  apart  from  its  external  manifestation,  belongs  the  care  of  all 
the  Churches)  as  to  what  opinion  should  be  held  on  difficult  matters, 
following  therein  the  ancient  rule,  which,  as  you  know,  the  whole 
world  has  always  observed  in  respect  of  me.  But  I  pass  over  all  this, 
for  I  am  sure  it  has  not  escaped  your  wisdom  ;  for  what  was  it  which 
you  decided  by  your  action  save  that  you  knew  that  throughout  all 
the  provinces  replies  and  questions  always  issue  from  the  Apostolic 
fount?  And  especially  as  often  as  a  question  of  faith  is  under 
-discussion,  I  suppose  that  all  our  brethren  and  fellow-bishops 
ought  not  to  refer  save  to  Peter — that  is,  the  author  of  their  own 
name  and  dignity— as  you,  beloved,  have  now  referred  it :  a  thing 


CHAP.  VI.]         DAWN    OF   THE   PAPAL   MONARCHY.  211 

which  may  he  for  the  common  profit  of  all  Churches  throughout  the 
world."  ' 

What  makes  the  audacity  of  these  assertions  more 
startling  is  the  fact  that  the  two  letters  from  which  they 
are  extracted  were  addressed  to  the  bishops  of  those 
very  Mauretanian  and  Numidian  Churches  which  in  St. 
Cyprian's  time  had  twice  rejected  by  a  unanimous  conciliar 
vote  and  decree  the  judgment  of  Pope  Stephen  on  a  ques- 
tion of  doctrine  and  discipline.  Innocent,  consequently, 
not  only  knew  that  his  statements  were  false,  but  that  all 
the  recipients  of  his  letters  w^ould  know  it  too.  Never- 
theless he  acted  on  a  principle  which  has  been  all  but 
invariably  followed  by  his  successors,  that  of  making  the 
very  largest  demands,  far  in  advance  of  the  rightful  claims 
of  his  See,  on  the  chance  of  their  being  allowed,  in  which 
case  they  would  be  all  clear  gain ;  while,  even  if  rejected, 
the  mere  fact  of  having  made  them  would  serve  so  far  as 
a  precedent,  that  the  demand  next  time  would  cease  to 
arouse  attention  as  a  startling  novelty,  and  the  documents 
might  also  be  utilised  in  places  where  the  fact  of  their 
having  been  challenged  and  rejected  could  be  passed  over 
in  silence,  and  it  might  be  taken  for  granted  that  they  had 
enjoyed  their  intended  authority.  At  the  risk  of  prolixity, 
it  is  desirable  to  cite  some  other  letters  of  this  Pope,  albeit 
of  much  less  importance,  as  helping  to  show  the  attitude 
he  adopted,  and  its  incompatibility  with  his  own  discharge 
of  his  high  functions,  assuming  them  to  be  all  that  he 
represented.  One  is  a  letter  of  consolation  he  addressed 
to  St.  Jerome  when  the  Pelagians  had  burnt  him  out  of 
his  monastery  at  Bethlehem,  and  attacked  the  house  of 
SS.  Paula  and  Eustochium,  towards  the  close  of  which  the 
Pope  says  :  "  If  you  will  lodge  an  open  and  manifest  accu- 
sation against  any  persons,  I  will  either  appoint  competent 
judges,  or,  if  there  be  anything  else  prompter  or  more  zealous 
which  can  be  done  by  us,  I  will  make  no  delay,  beloved 


'  St.  August.  Ep.  i8i,  182. 
P  2 


212  THE   PETRINE   CLAIMS.  CHAP.    VI, 

son."^  Here,  knowing,  as  he  must  have  done,  St.  Jerome's 
strong  local  attachment  to  the  Roman  See,  exhibited  long 
before  in  his  conduct  towards  Pope  Damasus,  Innocent 
suggests  to  him  the  idea  of  bringing  the  cause  out  of  the 
only  jurisdiction  which  had  a  right  to  try  it,  that  of  the 
Bishop  of  Jerusalem,  and  to  evoke  it  to  Rome,  before 
judges  with  no  claim  whatever.  Another  is  his  letter 
(sent,  it  would  seem,  by  the  same  messenger)  to  John  of 
Jerusalem  himself,  who  was  shrewdly  suspected  of  knowing 
too  much  about  the  Pelagians'  attack  on  St.  Jerome,  then 
in  disfavour  with  him  by  reason  of  his  conflict  with  the 
Origenists.  This  is  couched  in  terms  of  dignified  rebuke, 
well  deserved,  no  doubt,  though  somewhat  too  much  in  the 
tone  of  a  superior  addressing  his  inferior,  albeit  the  title 
"brother"  is  used;  but  there  is  not  a  word  in  it  implying 
any  canonical  rights  over  the  See  of  Jerusalem,  or  more 
than  the  duty  of  remonstrating  against  a  grievous  wrong 
which  had  been  permitted,  and  seemingly  not  punished, 
by  the  very  person  whose  care  it  should  have  been  to  pre- 
serve order.  Taken  together,  these  letters  show  a  design 
to  push  covertly  that  which  could  not  be  demanded  openly. 
A  third  letter,  somewhat  earlier  in  date,  is  in  reply  to  one 
from  St.  Augustine  and  others,  asking  for  information  about 
the  Pelagians  in  Rome,  where  the  heresiarch  had  long  re- 
sided. There  is  a  variant  in  this  letter  of  St.  Augustine's, 
in  one  text  of  which  we  read,  "  We  have  heard  that  in  the 
city  of  Rome,  where  he  [Pelagius]  lived  a  long  time,  there 
are  persons  who  favour  him  for  different  reasons,  some, 
because  they  assert  that  you  have  encouraged  such  teaching 
(vos  talia  persuasisse  perhibent)^  more,  because  they  do  not 
believe  that  he  holds  such  views  at  all."  The  other  text, 
which  is  the  Benedictine,  reads,  "  Some,  because  he  is 
alleged  to  have  so  persuaded  them  "  {quia  eis  talia  persua- 
sisse perhihetur).  Baronius,  who  follows  the  former  of  these 
readings,   treats   the   clause   as   an   example   of   heretical 


*  Baron.  Ann.  A.d.  416,  xxxiii 


CHAP.  VI.]  DAWN   OF   THE    PAPAL   MONARCHY.  213 

calumny,   striving   to   prop  itself  on   the   support  of  the 
Apostolic  See.     The  reply  of  Innocent  is  as  follows  : — 

"Whether  these  [Pelagians]  be  in  the  city,  as  we  know  nothing 
about  it,  we  can  neither  affirm  nor  deny  it ;  and  even  if  they  be  there, 
they  have  never  had  the  boldness  either  to  defend  him  when  he  has 
preached  such  doctrines,  or  to  assert  them  in  the  presence  of  any  of 
us,  nor  is  it  easy  in  such  a  crowded  population  to  lay  hold  of  or 
identify  any  person," ' 

No  apter  comment  could  be  made  on  his  claim  to  be  the 
ultimate  referee  and  supreme  teacher  of  all  Christendom 
than  this  humiliating  confession  that  he  knew  nothing 
about  the  principal  heresy  of  his  time,  which  had  been 
growing  and  spreading  at  its  will  under  his  very  eyes,  in 
his  own  city  of  Rome.  lie  may  be  acquitted  of  all  con- 
nivance at  it,  but  not  of  either  being  too  ignorant  of 
theology  to  recognise  its  bearing  till  he  was  instructed  by 
the  African  prelates,  or  too  remiss  in  discharging  the  duty 
of  banishing  all  false  doctrine  from  the  limits  of  his  diocese. 
It  has  been  necessary  to  dwell  at  some  length  on  the  career 
of  Innocent,  because  he  is  in  truth  the  real  founder  of  the 
Papal  monarchy  (though  the  greater  personal  eminence  of 
Leo  I.  has  caused  that  fact  to  be  too  much  obscured),  and 
it  is  in  his  language  that  we  first  find  a  direct  connexion 
between  the  alleged  Petrine  succession  and  the  Primacy 
of  Christendom  asserted,  and  the  claims  of  Rome  based 
directly  on  its  being  the  See  of  Peter,  and  on  Peter  him- 
self, not  Christ,  as  being  the  prime  source  of  all  ecclesias 
tical  jurisdiction :  a  view  Innocent  had  put  forward  as  early 
as  414  in  a  letter  to  Alexander  of  Antioch,  in  which  he 
alleges  the  dignity  of  that  city  in  the  Christian  hierarchy 
to  be  solely  due  to  its  having  been  for  a  time  St.  Peter's 
See,  and  that  it  yielded  to  Rome  only  because  St.  Peter 
ended  there  what  he  did  but  begin  at  Antioch.  "But," 
as  Bower  shrewdly  observes,  "  if  it  be  true,  as  Innocent 
pretends,  that  the  See  of  Antioch  owed  its  dignity  to  St. 
Peter,  and  not  to  the  city,  how  will  he  account  for  its  being 

'  Baron.  Ann.  406,  xii. 


214  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.    VI. 

ranked  under  that  of  Alexandria,  which  was  neither  founded 
nor  had  ever  been  honoured  by  that  Apostle  ?  "  ^ 

If  these  two  great  claims  made  by  Innocent  had  been 
suffered  to  pass  for  any  length  of  time  unquestioned, 
doubtless  they  might  have  acquired  prescription,  but  the 
African  Churches  met  the  demand  by  enacting  in  418  the 
canon  which  stands  as  No.  CXXV.  in  the  Codex  JEcdesicB 
Africance,  sentencing  to  excommunication  all  bishops, 
priests,  and  deacons  who  should  appeal  beyond  seas,  in- 
stead of  contenting  themselves  with  the  decisions  of  Afri- 
can primates  and  councils ;  while  the  still  larger  claim  was 
estopped  by  Canon  XXVIII.  of  Chalcedon  in  451. 

But  whereas  Innocent  had  at  any  rate  pronounced 
definitely  against  the  Pelagian  heresy,  and  approved  the 
African  decrees,  his  immediate  successor,  Zosimus,  who 
attained  the  pontificate  in  417,  reversed  this  decision  on 
the  personal  appeal  of  Caelestius,  whose  confession  of  faith, 
in  which  he  denied  original  sin  to  be  a  doctrine  of  the 
Church,  the  Pope  declared  orthodox  and  Catholic,  sending 
a  letter  thereupon  to  Aurelius  of  Carthage  and  the  other 
African  bishops,  directing  the  accusers  of  Caelestius  and 
Pelagius  either  to  appear  at  Rome  within  a  month  to  dis- 
prove the  former's  confession,  or  to  let  the  matter  drop 
finally,  and  in  the  meantime  to  abstain  from  all  such 
"  captious  questionings  and  idle  disputes  "  {tendiculas 
qucEstionum  et  inepta  certamina)^  calling  on  them  to  act 
thus  in  virtue  of  the  authority  of  the  Apostolic  See.-  He 
followed  this  letter  up  with  another,  in  which  he  summarily 
acquitted  Pelagius  of  all  blame,  nay,  praised  him  highly, 
and  sharply  rebuked  the  African  bishops  for  listening  to 
such  pests  {turbines  Ecdesice  vel  procellce)  as  Heros  and 
Lazarus,  the  Gallic  bishops  who  had  acted  as  the  accusers 
of  the  two  heresiarchs,  and  whom  the  Pope  reviles  in  the 
coarsest  language,  declaring  further  that  the  Apostolic  See 
had  specially  excommunicated  them,  but  found  no  fault  in 
the  two  accused,  who  up  to  that  time,  "  though  censured 

*  Hist,  of  the  Popes,  i.  143.  ^  Baron.  Ann.  417.  xix. 


CHAP.    VI.]  DAWN    OF   THE    PAPAL    MONARCHY.  215 

by  unjust  judges,  have  never  been  separated  from  our  body 
nor  from  Catholic  verity."  ^ 

St.  Augustine  was  not  the  man  to  be  put  down  by 
bluster  of  this  sort,  but  at  once  procured  the  assembling 
of  an  African  council  of  214  bishops  at  Carthage  in  Feb- 
ruary 418,  which  unanimously  renewed  the  condemnation 
of  Pelagius  and  C^elestius,  informing  Zosimus  that  they 
adhered  to  the  decision  of  his  predecessor  Innocent ;  while 
yet  another  council  of  225  bishops — if  it  be  not  rather  the 
same  reassembled  after  prorogation — met  in  May  of  the 
same  year,  and  again  condemning  the  Pelagians,  further 
enacted  the  canon  against  transmarine  appeals  just  referred 
to,  and  obviously  directed  in  opposition  to  the  Roman  claims. 

Whether  the  Pope's  action  be  regarded  as  that  of  the 
claimant  to  be  the  teacher,  or  as  that  of  the  claimant  to  be 
the  ruler,  of  all  Christendom,  this  episode  is  equally  fatal 
to  the  pretensions  of  his  See  ;  for  he  was  compelled  by  the 
force  of  public  opinion,  and  still  more  by  the  terrors  of  an 
Imperial  decree  against  the  Pelagians,  to  retract  his  former 
decision,  and  to  anathematize  and  excommunicate  both 
Pelagius  and  Caelestius ;  though  in  the  very  letter  contain- 
ing his  retractation  he  asserted  that  "  the  Popes  inherited 
from  St.  Peter  his  divine  authority,  so  that  no  one  may 
challenge  the  Pope's  decision."  - 

St.  Augustine's  comment  on  the  matter,  after  this  con- 
summation had  been  reached,  is  curious.  It  was  his  desire, 
as  that  of  all  the  leading  theologians  of  his  school,  to  hush 
up  as  far  as  possible  the  scandal  of  the  Papal  error,  and  to 
establish  the  influence  of  the  Roman  Chair,  if  for  no  other 
reason  than  that  its  great  power  made  it  the  best  available 
agency  for  putting  pressure  on  the  civil  authority  in  the 
AVest  in  any  ecclesiastical  crisis.  Accordingly  he  palliates 
the  conduct  of  Zosimus,  ascribing  his  acquittal  of  Coelestius 
not  to  approval  of  that  teacher's  doctrine  as  Catholic,  but 
to  his  confidence  in  the  professed  willingness  of  Caelestius 
•to  condemn   anything   erroneous  which  might   be  found 

*  Baron.  Ann.  417.  xv.-xxxix.  "^  Ep.  Mansi,  iv.  366. 


2l6  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VI. 

therein.      And  then  he  uses  these  words,  which  form  a 
noteworthy  comment  on  the  infaUibiHty  dogma : — 

"But  if— which  Heaven  forbid  (qtwd  al'sit)— there  was  a  decision  at 
that  time  in  the  Roman  Church  concerning  Coelestius  or  Pelagius,  to 
the  effect  that  their  opinions,  which  Pope  Innocent  had  condemned 
in  and  with  them,  were  pronounced  approved  and  tenable,  the  result 
of  that  would  be  to  brand  the  stigma  of  apostasy  {prcevaricationis)  on 
the  Roman  clergy."  ' 

But,  as  precisely  this  very  thing  had  happened,  the  Saint's 
censure  remains. 

The  later  struggle  of  Pope  Zosimus  with  the  African 
Church  in  the  affair  of  Apiarius,  in  which  he  was  again 
defeated,  has  been  already  discussed  in  a  former  chapter, 
wherein  the  canons  of  the  Councils  are  examined ;  ^  nor 
was  he  more  successful  in  an  attempt  to  exercise  jurisdiction 
over  the  bishops  of  Gaul,  when  he  strove  to  set  aside  the 
^decrees  of  the  Council  of  Turin  by  adjudging  the  primacy 
^f  Gallia  Narbonensis  to  Patroclus,  Bishop  of  Aries,  and 
•endeavoured  to  depose  or  excommunicate  Proculus,  Bishop 
•  of  Marseilles,  who  steadily  resisted  him,  and  held  posses- 
sion of  his  see  in  despite  of  the  Papal  edicts,  being  recog- 
nised till  his  death  by  the  Bishops  of  Gaul  and  of  Africa. 
In  the  course  of  this  dispute  Zosimus  made  one  dangerous 
:  admission,  in  that  he  alleged  that  the  metropolitan  dignity 
•and  jurisdiction  had  been  so  unalterably  annexed  to  the 
vSee  of  Aries  by  the  decrees  of  the  Fathers  and  councils 
.that  it  was  beyond  even  the  power  and  authority  of  the 
Roman  See  to  transfer  them  to  any  other ;  albeit  in  his  own 
action  he  was  contravening,  as  just  remarked,  the  decrees 
of  Turin.  He  died  shortly  after  penning  the  letter  which 
contains  this  statement.^  It  suffices  here  to  say  that  the 
contest  between  Rome  and  Carthage  continued  under  his 

1  Ad.  Boni.  ii.   5.  ^  Chap.  iii. 

^  Bower,  Hist,  of  Popes.,  i.  160,     "Quod  contra  statuta  Patrum  et 
Sancti  Trophimi  reverentiam,  qui  primus  Metropolitanus  Arelatensis, 
civitatis  ex  hac  sede  directus  est,  concedere,  vel  mutare,  7ie  hiijiis  qtddem 
sedis  possit  auctoritas" — Zos.  Epist.  ad  Episc.  Vienn.  et  Narbon.,  ap. 
Baronium,  Ann.  417,  xlviii. 


CHAP.  VI.]  DAWN    OF   THE   PAPAL   MONARCHY.  217 

successors  Boniface  I.^  and  Celestine  I.  The  heads  of  the 
letter  addressed  by  the  Council  of  Carthage  in  424  to  Pope 
Celestine  have  already  been  summarised  (//.  s.) ;  but  one  of 
its  clauses  is  such  a  peremptory  challenge  of  the  whole 
later  theory  of  Papal  supremacy  and  infallibility,  and  of  the 
actual  wording  of  the  Vatican  decrees,-  that  it  deserves  a 
verbal  citation.  After  repudiating  the  notion  that  any 
special  privilege  of  the  Roman  Church,  entitling  it  to  inter- 
fere with  other  Churches,  existed  at  all,  or  could  be  pressed 
without  violating  the  Nicene  canons,  the  Fathers  add  that 
these  Nicene  canons,  providing  for  the  trial  of  spiritual 
causes  within  each  province  without  further  appeal,  were 
most  wisely  and  righteously  drafted : 

**  especially  because  permission  was  given  to  every  one  who  found  fault 
with  anyjudgnient  of  the  arbiters  {cog7iiton4m)  to  appeal  to  the  councils 
of  his  province,  or  even  to  a  general  council,  unless  perchance  there  be 
somebody  who  can  believe  that  our  God  might  possibly  inspire  any  one 
single  person  luith  the  power  of  righteous  judgment,  and  deny  it  to 
countless  priests  assembled  in  council.''^ 


*  Boniface  I.  is  one  of  those  very  questionable  links  in  the  chain  of 
Roman  succession  which  make  its  canonical  regularity  most  doubtful. 
There  was  a  double  election,  and  his  competitor,  Eulalius,  Archdeacon 
of  Rome,  was  actually  proclaimed  and  throned  in  due  form  as  Pope. 
Symmachus,  Pnetorian  Prefect  of  Rome,  reported  to  the  Emperor 
Honorius  that  the  latter  was  the  valid  election.  Boniface  attempted, 
like  Damasus,  to  force  his  way  in  by  help  of  a  mob,  and  that  in  the 
teeth  of  an  Imperial  edict  declaring  that  he  was  the  intruding  claimant. 
He  appealed,  and  pending  the  rehearing,  the  Emperor  decreed  that 
neither  candidate  should  enter  Rome,  and  that  Achilles,  Bishop  of 
Spoleto,  should  perform  all  episcopal  functions  there  in  the  meanwhile. 
Eulalius,  who  seems  not  to  have  known  of  this  decree,  which  even  the 
Prefect  had  not  received,  transgressed  its  provisions  by  entering  the 
city  as  Pope.  He  and  his  unarmed  friends  were  speedily  assailed  by 
an  armed  mob  of  Boniface's  faction  ;  but  the  Emperor  held  him  ac- 
countable for  the  riot,  and  decreed  his  expulsion  and  the  recognition 
of  Boniface  as  the  true  Pope.  No  trial  on  the  merits  ever  took  place  ; 
and  the  friends  of  Eulalius  never  accepted  the  Imperial  decree  as 
valid,  nor  would  communicate  with  Boniface. — Baron.  Ann.  419, 
xxxiii.-xli. 

**  Romani  Pontificis  definitiones  esse  ex  sese,  non  autem  ex  consensu 
tccUtia,  irreformabiles." 


2l8  THE    PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VI. 

And  then  they  go  on  to  point  out  the  practical  inconveni- 
ence of  appeals  beyond  sea,  as  regards  the  production  of 
witnesses  ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  no  former  council 
which  they  had  been  able  to  find  had  ever  empowered  the 
Pope  to  send  legates  a  latere  to  try  cases  on  the  spot.^ 
And  they  close  by  implying  very  clearly  that  in  commis- 
sioning his  legate  Faustinus  to  force  on  the  African  Church 
certain  canons  [of  Sardica]  as  though  Nicene  canons,  he 
was  lending  himself  to  what  he  certainly  knew  to  be  false  ; 
because  when  his  predecessor  Boniface  had  made  the 
same  attempt,  envoys  had  been  sent  to  him  from  Carthage, 
bearing  authentic  copies  of  the  Nicene  canons,  attested  by 
Cyril  of  Alexandria  and  Atticus  of  Constantinople,  from 
whose  archives  they  had  been  procured. 

The  next  matter  of  importance  to  be  considered  is  the 
assembling  of  the  Third  General  Council  at  Ephesus  in 
431.  As  in  the  two  preceding  cases,  it  was  by  Imperial, 
not  by  Papal,  fiat  that  it  was  convened.  Theodosius  II., 
on  November  19,  430,  addressed  a  circular  letter  in  his 
own  name  and  in  that  of  his  cousin,  Valentinian  III., 
Emperor  of  the  West,  to  all  metropolitans,  bidding  them 
assemble  at  Ephesus  by  Pentecost  431.  He  seems  to  have 
done  this  chiefly  on  the  petition  of  Nestorius  ;  and  the  very 
fact  of  this  council  being  convened  at  all  is  an  emphatic 
refutation  of  the  Papal  claims,  simply  because  Nestorius, 
whose  teaching  was  to  be  the  subject  of  debate,  had  already 
been  condemned  and  deposed  by  Pope  Celestine,  on 
August  1 1,  430,  in  a  Council  at  Rome,  accepted  as  the  voice 
of  the  whole  Western  Church.  Clearly,  if  a  Papal  sentence 
be  final,  there  was  no  reason,  and  even  no  room,  for  a 
synod  to  reopen  the  matter,  or  so  much  as  to  affirm  the 
Pope's  decision.  But  no  such  claim  appears  in  Celestine's 
own  letter  to  the  Council,  in  which  he  expressly  says  that 
the  Divine  commission  to  teach  had  come  equally  to  all 
Bishops  by  hereditary  right,  that  the  command  is  a  general 

^  "Nam  ut  aliqui  tamquam  tuae  sanctitatis  latere  mittantur,  nulla 
invenimus  Patrum  synodo  constitutum." 


CHAP.  VI.]  DAWN   OF   THE    PAPAL    MONARCHY.  219 

one,  and  to  be  executed  by  the  joint  and  co-ordinate  action 
of  all.^  Two  incidents,  however,  mark  the  growth  of  Papal 
claims  since  the  Council  of  Nicaea.  In  the  first  place,  he 
sent  two  bishops,  Arcadius  and  Projectus,  together  with 
Philip,  a  priest,  as  his  legates ;  and  next,  they  were 
expressly  instructed,  while  giving  a  general  support  to  Cyril 
of  Alexandria,  the  president  of  the  Council,  to  uphold  in 
all  things  the  authority  of  the  Roman  See.-  Another  able 
stroke  of  policy  was  that  Celestine,  albeit  having  his 
legates  in  attendance,  entrusted  to  Cyril  his  own  proxy, 
thereby  making  it  arguable  that  it  was  in  virtue  of  that 
proxy,  and  for  no  other  reason,  that  Cyril  presided.  But 
this,  albeit  relied  on  by  modern  controversialists,  failed  of 
its  alleged  effect ;  not  only  because  no  power  of  being  or  of 
naming  the  president  had  ever  been  entrusted  to  the  Pope, 
who  thus  could  not  delegate  what  he  did  not  enjoy,  and 
also  because  no  instructions  were  given  to  the  actual  legates 
to  treat  Cyril  as  their  chief  in  that  sense,  but  further  because 
Cyril  happened  to  absent  himself  from  some  of  the  sessions, 
and  on  those  occasions  his  place  was  filled  by  Juvenal  of 
Jerusalem  (not  yet  a  patriarchal  see),  instead  of  by  one  of 
the  Papal  legates,  who  would  have  naturally  occupied  the 
presidency,  as  next  in  order,  had  Cyril  sat  merely  as  proxy 
for  Celestine ;  though,  without  doubt,  his  holding  the 
proxy  did  give  him  greater  influence  in  the  synod,  as  may 
be  gathered  from  the  brief  references  which  Evagrius, 
Zonaras,  and  Photius  make  to  the  fact  that  he  acted  for 
Celestine  as  well  as  for  himself.  And  it  is  just  possible 
that  it  was  this  new  precedent  which  led  Gelasius  of  Cyzi- 
cus  to  assume  that  Hosius  of  Cordova  held  a  similar  proxy 
at  Nicaea  for  Pope  Sylvester. 

That  Nestorius  and  the  bishops  of  his  party  were  never- 
theless summoned  to  take  their  seats  in  the  Council  shows 
that  their  ecclesiastical  position  was  not  held  to  be  affected 
by  the  Roman  decrees ;  but  the  Papal  legates,  by  a  brilliant 
stratagem,  succeeded  in  more  than  recovering  all  the  ground 

'  Mansi,  Cone.  iv.  1283.  '  Hardouin,  Cone.  i.  1347. 


2  20  THE    PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VI. 

lost  in  this  wise.  Knowing  Cyril's  temper,  and  being 
assured  that,  so  long  as  Nestorius  was  condemned  some- 
how, the  Egyptian  patriarch  would  not  scrutinise  too 
minutely  the  terms  in  which  this  might  be  done,  all  three 
•of  them  in  concert  alleged  that  they  and  the  Council 
generally  were  merely  executing  the  decree  of  Pope 
Celestine,  which  the  legate  Philip  asserted  to  be  in  effect 
that  of  Peter,  "  Exarch  and  Head  of  the  Apostles,  Pillar 
and  Foundation  of  the  Church  Catholic,  ....  who  even 
to  the  present  time  ives  and  exercises  these  judicial  powers 
in  his  successors."  ^  However,  the  actual  sentence  of 
•deposition  had  been  passed  upon  Nestorius  in  quite 
different  terms  before  the  Roman  legates  arrived,  and  they 
did  not  assent  thereto  ;  while  the  synodical  epistles  of  the 
Council  to  the  Emperor  and  the  Pope  contain  no  such 
admissions  :  for  in  the  former  epistle  all  that  is  stated  is 
that,  as  the  Western  Churches  agree  with  the  doctrine 
enunciated  at  Ephesus  by  the  Eastern,  the  sentence  pro- 
nounced may  be  taken  as  the  common  judgment  of  all  the 
Christian  world;  and  the  Pope  is  told  that  "we  com- 
manded that  the  sentence  which  your  Holiness  pronounced 
should  remain  firm;"  a  phrase  which  necessarily  implies 
their  right  of  annulling  it,  had  it  pleased  them  so  to  do ; 
while  in  neither  letter  is  there  any  recognition  of  the  legatine 
character  in  Cyril's  person,  but  only  in  that  of  the  three 
Roman  envoys.  And  St.  Cyril's  own  teaching  on  the 
Apostolic  and  episcopal  offices  is  still  extant  in  abundance, 
proving  amply  that  he  held  no  such  views  as  those  which 
the  legate  Philip  had  advanced,  but  regarded  the  Apostles 

'  Labbe,  Coitc.  iii.,  Cone.  Eph.  KoX.  ii.  col.  1147-1158.  An  Ultra- 
jnontane  argument  has  been  based  on  a  phrase  which  occurs  more 
than  once  in  these  Acts,  and  is  to  the  effect  that  the  Fathers  of  the 
Council,  jointly  with  the  legates,  admitted  themselves  to  be  merely 
"'  executing  "  the  decree  already  finally  pronounced  by  Celestine.  As  a 
fact,  the  phrase,  when  tested,  proves  to  refer  to  the  legates  exclusively, 
^nd  merely  denotes  their  discharge  of  their  legatine  commission,  for 
the  verb  Ik^i^uX^hv  and  the  noun  iKl3i(5a(Trag  are  used  only  by  the 
legates  when  speaking  of  themselves,  or  by  the  Council  in  the  same 
restricted  sense. 


CHAP.  VI.]     DAWN  OF  THE  PAPAL  MONARCHY.       22  1 

as  enjoying  a  parity  of  rank  and  authority,  and  himself  as 
Celestine's  equal  and  colleague,  albeit  lower  in  precedence, 
since  occupying  a  less  important  see.^ 

Another  circumstance,  belonging  to  this  same  year  431, 
has  an  importance  which  must  have  been  quite  unobserv- 
able  at  that  time,  and  indeed  until  the  Jansenist  controversy 
arose  :  namely,  that  Pope  Celestine  then  addressed  a  letter 
to  the  Bishops  of  Gaul,  urging  them  to  uphold  the  doctrines 
of  St.  Augustine  on  grace  and  free-will,  and  to  silence  all 
opposition  thereto.  In  order  to  make  quite  clear  what  he 
meant,  he  appended  to  his  letter  nine  articles,  which 
expressly  maintain  the  very  tenets  condemned  by  the  Bull 
l/ni^cm'/us  of  Clement  XI.  in  17 13.  This  conflict  of  in- 
fallibilities is  so  direct  and  explicit,  that  an  attempt  has 
been  made  to  evade  it  by  denying  Celestine's  authorship  of 
the  articles  in  question ;  but  the  external  evidence  is  too 
precise,  seeing  that  they  are  ascribed  to  him  by  Dionysius 
Exiguus  in  his  collection  of  decretals  and  canons  made  in 
the  sixth  century,  by  Petrus  Diaconus  in  519,  and  by  Cres- 
conius  in  his  Concordia  Canonum  in  the  seventh  century ; 
and  in  fact  they  were  never  disputed  till  their  authenticity 
became  inconvenient.^ 

With  the  accession  of  Leo  the  Great  to  the  Papal  Chair 
a  new  era  sets  in.  That  eminent  man  is  not  only  the  first 
to  formulate  Papalism  as  the  essential  principle  of  the 
Church,  derived  by  full  devolution  from  St.  Peter,  but  he 
occupies  a  remarkable  place  on  two  other  grounds.  He  was, 
on  the  one  hand,  the  first  of  the  Popes  who  can  be  justly 
entitled  a  theologian  (with  the  one  possible  exception  of  his 
predecessor  Dionysius^),  and  who  helped  to  teach  Christen- 
dom, instead  of  having  to  borrow  his  instruction  from 
outsiders,  or  to  err  grievously  in  default  of  such  instruction, 


'  As  there  are  copious  citations  to  this  effect  from  St.  Cyril  accumu- 
lated in  Mr.  Allies's  Church  of  England  Cleared  from  the  Charge  of 
Schism,  2nd  edition,  pp.  206-212,  it  is  needless  to  reproduce  them 
here. 

«  Dupin,  Bibl.  Eccl.  iii.  2.  »  See  Routh,  Rell.  Sac.  iii. 


222  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP    VI. 

as  was  the  case  with  too  many  of  his  predecessors.  On  the 
other  hand,  he  was  the  innovator  who  began  the  usage  of 
preaching  to  the  people  in  Rome  itself.  We  are  not  left  to 
the  merely  negative  evidence  of  his  being  the  first  Roman 
sermons  now  extant,  for  the  historian  Sozomen,  whose 
narrative  comes  down  to  a.d.  439,  the  very  year  before 
Leo's  accession,  makes  the  following  remarkable  statement : 
*'  Neither  the  Bishop  nor  any  other  person  teaches  there 
[Rome]  in  church ;"i  a  testimony  confirmed  by  Cassio- 
dorus,2  whose  familiarity  with  Roman  customs  shuts  out 
the  plea  of  error  which  might  be  alleged  in  the  case  of  a 
foreigner  like  Sozomen.  The  bearing  of  these  two  facts  on 
the  claims  of  the  Popes  as  supreme  teachers  of  Christen- 
dom is  very  direct,  because  they  establish  jointly  that  in  no 
intelligible  sense  whatever  could  Rome  have  been  resorted 
to  or  regarded  during  the  first  four  centuries  of  Christianity 
as  a  place  of  theological  instruction.  She  had  to  accept 
the  theology  provided  for  her  by  the  divines  of  more 
learned  and  philosophical  Churches,  instead  of  originating 
any  teaching  herself;  and  the  pulpit  was  as  silent  as  the 
pen  throughout  that  long  period  within  her  walls. 

On  no  hypothesis  whatever  that  Rome  was  recognised  as 
the  teaching  centre  of  ancient  Christendom  could  such  a 
state  of  things  have  existed.  Even  if  the  function  of 
supreme  teacher  be  limited  to  the  sense  in  which  the 
sovereign  in  Great  Britain  is  the  supreme  legislator — that 
is,  that  the  stamp  of  Papal  assent  gave  validity  and  currency 
to  all  doctrinal  teaching,  which,  without  it,  might  indeed  be 
true,  but  would  still  be  only  private  and  unauthoritative — 
yet  in  that  case  theologians  would  have  as  surely  gravitated 
to  Rome,  if  only  to  obtain  this  necessary  certificate  more 
quickly,  as  politicians  gravitate  to  London,  Paris,  or  Berlin 
if  they  desire  to  share  in  or  influence  legislation  in  England, 
France,  or  Germany ;  and  a  great  school  of  divinity  must 
inevitably  have  grown  up  at  the  feet  of  the  infallible  Pope.  But 
down  to  the  very  present  no  such  manifestation  has  been 

'  Hist.  Eccl.  vii.  19.  2  ^^^^^  Tripart,  Eccl  ix.  39. 


CHAP.  VI.]  DAWN    OF   THE    PAPAL    MONARCHY.  223 

visible  at  Rome  from  the  earliest  period.  Nothing  like  the 
famous  School  of  Alexandria  was  formed  there  in  ancient 
times ;  nothing  like  the  reputation  of  Paris  or  of  Oxford  fell 
in  the  mediaeval  days  to  the  lot  of  the  University  of  Rome, 
which  has  never  taken  a  respectable  place  amongst  Euro- 
pean seats  of  learning  in  all  its  centuries  of  existence,  never 
trained  one  indigenous  theologian  of  celebrity,  nor  sent  out, 
as  the  two  Universities  just  named  habitually  did,  a  supply  of 
gifted  scholars  to  supply  the  schools  and  pulpits  of  Latin 
Christendom.  A  broad  fact  of  this  kind,  stretching  over 
many  centuries,  affords  far  ampler  disproof  of  the  claim  to  uni- 
versal teachership  than  any  mere  technical  flaws  in  the  plea 
itself,  however  serious  and  pregnant,  can  possibly  do. 

For  more  than  twenty  years  previous  to  his  elevation  to  the 
Papacy,  Leo  had  been  an  active  member  of  the  Roman 
clergy,  and  was  Archdeacon  of  Rome  as  early  as  422. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  at  all  of  the  manner  in  which  the 
imperial  character  of  Rome,  transferred  in  idea  to  the 
ecclesiastical  sphere,  had  seized  on  his  imagination,  nor 
how  thoroughly  he  accepted  the  Petrine  legend  which  the 
local  patriotism  and  practised  ingenuity  of  the  urban  clergy 
and  lawyers,  and  the  far-reaching  ambition  of  successive 
Pontiffs,  had  steadily  built  up  out  of  the  scantiest  and  most 
uncertain  materials.  When  we  remember  the  entire  good 
faith  with  which  Charles  I.  and  his  principal  adherents 
clung  to  the  theory  of  the  hereditary  Divine  right  of  kings, 
albeit  a  sheer  invention  of  the  sixteenth  century,  and  con- 
tradicted by  the  whole  tenour  of  English  history  previous 
to  the  Tudor  tyranny,  we  shall  have  less  diflSculty  in  under- 
standing how  even  Leo's  masculine  intellect  could  accept 
and  steadily  maintain  the  absolutist  theory  of  Church 
government,  especially  as  his  practical  turn  of  mind  enabled 
him  to  see  at  once  what  a  powerful  instrument  it  must  be 
in  able  hands  for  cementing  a  disintegrated  and  decaying 
society ;  and  it  can  scarcely  be  matter  of  surprise  that  he 
never  hesitated  to  avail  himself  of  it.  The  one  ground  of 
regret  is  that  the  readiness  to  use  both  force  and  fraud  in 
pushing  the  claims  of  the  Roman  See,  which  is  the  stigma 


2  24  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [cHAP.  VI, 

of  the  later  Papacy,  is  as  manifest  in  Leo,  despite  his  just 
right  in  some  respects  to  the  title  of  Saint,  as  it  is  in  a 
Boniface  VIII.  or  a  Eugenius  IV. 

The  first  leading  instance  occurred  early  in  his  Pontifi- 
cate. So  far  back  as  416  Pope  Zosimus,  as  mentioned 
above,  had  assigned  the  primacy  of  Narbonensian  Gaul  to 
the  See  of  Aries.  In  445  St.  Hilary,  then  Archbishop  of 
Aries,  during  a  visitation  of  his  province,  deposed  formally 
in  synod  Celidonius,  Bishop  of  Besangon,  as  canonically 
disqualified  from  office,  because  he  had  married  a  widow, 
and  had  also,  previous  to  his  ordination,  taken  part  in  a 
criminal  trial  ending  in  a  capital  sentence,  and  thus  had,  in 
a  sense,  blood  on  his  hands. 

Celidonius  went  to  Rome,  and  appealed  in  person  to  the 
Pope,  on  the  plea  that  his  diocese  lay  within  the  jurisdiction 
of  Vienne,  not  of  Aries;  and  Leo  quashed  in  his  favour  the 
decree  of  Zosimus  and  the  sentence  of  Hilary,  restored 
him  to  his  rank,  received  him  to  communion,  and  per- 
mitted him  to  perform  episcopal  functions  in  his. presence; 
all  before  any  formal  rehearing  of  the  case  ;  and  thus  the 
Pope  violated,  as  Dupin  points  out.  Canon  V.  of  Nicaea, 
Canon  LV.  of  Elvira,  Canon  XVI.  of  Aries  I.,  Canon  VII. 
of  Turin,  Canon  II.  of  Orange  I.,  Canon  VIII.  of  Aries  II., 
and  the  decretal  of  Innocent  I.  to  Victorinus.  St.  Hilary  , 
on  receiving  the  news,  set  out  in  his  turn  for  Rome  on  foot, 
not,  as  he  said  himself  publicly,  to  'have  the  cause  reheard 
on  appeal,  but  to  protest  against  Leo's  interference,  and 
arrived  in  the  middle  of  winter.  He  at  once  charged  the 
Pope  with  having  decided  against  the  merits  of  the  case 
and  in  violation  of  ecclesiastical  law  ;  and  the  result  was 
that,  by  an  act  of  arbitrary  violence  hitherto  unknown  in 
Church  history,  he  was  thrown  into  a  Roman  prison  by 
order  of  the  Pope,  who  found  that  an  easier  process  than 
to  justify  his  own  proceedings.  St.  Hilary,  however,  man- 
aged to  escape,  and  returned  to  Aries,  only  to  find  Celi- 
donius speedily  reinstated  at  Besangon  by  the  Pope,  who 

'  De  Antiq.  Eccl.  Discip.  Diss.  ii.  p.  209. 


CHAP.  VI.]  DAWN    OF   THE    PA^>AL    MONARCHY.  2  2$ 

treated  the  Saint's  escape  from  prison  as  an  abandonment 
of  the  suit  and  a  disclaimer  of  Papal  jurisdiction,  and  pro- 
ceeded further  to  excommunicate  St.  Hilary,  and  to  deprive 
the  See  of  Aries  of  its  jurisdiction  over  Viennese  and  Nar- 
bonensian  Gaul,  an  act,  which,  as  we  have  seen  above,  his 
predecessor  Zosimus  had  declared  to  exceed  the  powers  of 
the  Roman  Chair  itself.  And  the  only  ground  Leo  alleges 
for  this  act,  in  his  epistle  to  the  Gallic  bishops,  is  that  St. 
Hilary  "  did  not  await  the  great  moderation  in  judgment  of 
the  Prince  of  the  Apostles,  which  he  always  exhibits 
through  his  vicars."  ^ 

No  act  at  all  parallel  to  this  outrage  on  canonical  rights 
in  the  person  of  an  orthodox  bishop  of  a  great  see  had 
previously  occurred,  which  could  serve  as  a  precedent. 
And  it  should  not  be  forgotten  that  as  yet  the  only  provi- 
sions which  made  any  sort  of  interference,  other  than 
merely  diplomatic,  feasible  for  the  Pope,  were  the  dubious 
canons  of  Sardica,  which,  however,  were  rejected  by  Africa 
and  the  East,  and  do  not  appear  to  have  been  put  in  ure 
anywhere  in  the  West.  But  they  had  been  fully  adopted 
into  the  code  of  Roman  Canon  law ;  and  accordingly,  if 
Leo  (who  cites  them,  though  not  on  the  question  of  ap- 
peals, as  Nicene  canons,  despite  the  then  recent  African 
exposure,  in  a  letter  to  Theodosius  H.  in  449,  Leon.  Epist. 
xliii.)  had  chosen  to  fall  back  on  them,  a-nd  had  caused  the 
case  of  Hilary  and  Celidonius  to  be  reheard  at  Aries,  in 
accordance  with  them,  it  might  arguably  be  pleaded  that 
he  was  dealing  with  the  matter  on  grounds  of  strict 
legality .2  The  only  other  right  he  could  have  conceivably 
enjoyed  in  respect  of  the  case  would  have  been  in  virtue  of 
his  patriarchal  office.  But  herein  a  very  weighty  difference 
existed  between  the  Eastern  and  the  Western  Churches. 


'  Baron.  Ann.  445,  xiv. 

*  Tillemont  {Mini.  xv.  74)  hints  that  the  reason  why  Leo  did  not 
fall  back  on  the  Sardican  canons  was  because  St.  Hilary  was  not  likely 
to  know  any  more  alxiut  their  existence  than  the  African  bishops  had 
done ;  another  indirect  argument  for  their  being  a  forgery. 

Q 


226  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VI. 

In  the  East  the  patriarchates  were  of  very  wide  extent, 
geographically  and  jurisdictionally,  and  only  a  very  few 
autocephalous  Churches,  such  as  that  of  Cyprus,  were 
scattered  here  and  there  within  their  area.  It  was  thus  not 
easy  for  any  Eastern  prelate  of  the  first  rank  to  make  en- 
croachments on  a  large  scale,  because  he  could  not  do  so 
without  stirring  up  an  equally  powerful  neighbour  in  defence 
of  his  imperilled  privileges.  But  in  the  West,  owing  to  the 
sparse  population  and  the  absence  of  large  cities,  only  one 
patriarchate  existed,  as  against  the  four  Eastern  ones,  and 
it  was  restricted  to  the  narrow  area  of  the  provinces  of 
Central  and  Southern  Italy  (not  even  including  Milan  or 
Aquileia),  together  with  the  Islands  of  Sicily,  Sardinia,  and 
Corsica — that  is  to  say,  the  "  Suburbicarian  Provinces," 
which  under  the  Empire  had  been  constituted  the  region 
subject  to  the  authority  of  the  Imperial  Vicar,  Prefect  of  the 
city  of  Rome.^  Consequently  Gaul,  Spain,  Germany,  and 
Britain  all  lay  outside  the  Pope's  special  jurisdiction,  and 
might  have  seemed  safe  from  his  encroachments.  But  the 
very  fact  that  he  had  no  rival  in  office  throughout  the  West, 
nor,  indeed,  any  inferior  of  so  much  as  approximately  com- 
parable rank  save  the  Bishop  of  Milan,  made  it  much  easier 
for  him  to  bring  all  the  pressure  of  his  unique  position  to  bear 
on  any  of  the  Western  diocesans,  who,  as  comparatively 
isolated,  and  in  no  case  holding  more  than  exarchal  rank, 
were  much  less  able  to  fight  their  own  battles,  or  to  find 
any  powerful  ally,  than  the  occupant  of  a  menaced  Oriental 
see.  Nevertheless  the  Westerns  could  appeal  to  the  then 
very  recent  canon  of  Ephesus,  forbidding  any  prelate  to 
usurp  jurisdiction  in  a  diocese  or  province  which  had  not 
been  from  the  very  beginning  subject  to  his  see,  and  oblig- 
ing him  to  restore  it,  in  the  event  of  any  such  encroach- 
ment having  been  made.  This  canon  was  of  course 
perfectly  familiar  to  Leo,  nor  can  he  be  supposed  ignorant 
of  the  narrow  area  of  his   own   legal  jurisdiction.     And 


Dupin,  Antiq.  Discip.  Ecd.  I.  ix. 


CHAP.  VI.]  DAWN   OF   THE   PAPAL    MONARCHY.  227 

accordingly,  as  has  been  shewn,  he  does  not  plead  Canon  law 
as  his  justification  at  all,  but  has  recourse  to  a  theory  of 
"superabounding"  jurisdiction  inherent  in  himself  as  heir 
of  St.  Peter,  empowering  him  to  override  all  Church  law 
in  any  emergency,  though  it  permitted  the  ordinary  routine 
to  be  guided  in  the  usual  fashion.  It  is  impossible,  how- 
ever, to  acquit  him  even  on  the  ground  of  his  belief  in  this 
theory,  because  he  was  making  a  new  precedent  on  this 
occasion,  and  could  not  appeal  to  any  previous  exercise  of 
similar  authority  on  the  part  of  either  St.  Peter  himself  or  of 
any  of  his  own  predecessors  in  the  Roman  Chair.  St.  Hilary 
took  his  stand  on  the  canons,  and  refused  to  yield  to  the 
pressure  put  upon  him,  as  involving  a  betrayal  of  the  rights 
he  was  bound  to  defend.  And  then  Leo  took  the  step 
which  has  branded  his  memory  ever  since,  and  is  wholly 
incapable  of  palliation.  He  applied  to  the  weak  and 
dissolute  Valentinian  HI.  to  bring  the  arm  of  the  State  to 
bear  on  a  man  whom  he  falsely  represented  not  merely  as 
a  spiritual  offender,  but  as  a  rebel  against  the  civil  power, 
and  obtained  the  following  Imperial  rescript,  addressed  to 
Aetius,  then  commander-in-chief  in  Gaul,  whose  terms, 
there  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt,  Leo  dictated  himself, 
and  which  simply  swarms  with  falsehoods  : — 

**  It  is  certain  that  the  one  and  only  safeguard  of  Us  and  Our 
Empire  is  in  the  favour  of  God  Most  High,  towards  meriting  which 
Christian  faith  and  our  venerable  religion  mainly  conduce.  Whereas, 
therefore,  the  authority  of  a  sacred  Synod  ^  hath  confirmed  the  Primacy 
of  the  Apostolic  See,  the  merit  of  St.  Peter,  who  is  the  Prince  of  the 
Episcopal  Choir  (corona:),  and  the  dignity  of  the  City  of  Rome,  so  that 
no  presumption  should  attempt  to  do  aught  unpermitted  by  the  autho- 
rity of  that  See  ;  then  only  will  the  peace  of  the  Churches  be  preserved, 
if  the  whole  world  [ufiiversitas)  acknowledge  its  ruler.  And  whereas 
this  rule  has  been  hitherto  inviolably  observed,  Hilary  of  Aries  (as  We 
learn  from  the  faithful  narrative  of  the  venerable  Leo,  Pope  of  Rome) 
hath  with  contumacious  daring  presumed  to  attempt  certain  unlawful 
acts,  and  consequently  an  abominable  disturbance  has  invaded  the 
Transalpine  Churches,  as  a  recent  example  proves.     For  Hilary,  who 

•  There  is  a  careful  absence  of  any  specification.     In  fact,  no  such 
synod  had  ever  existed  so  far,  and  Leo  knew  it. 

Q  2 


228  THE   PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VI. 

is  styled  Bishop  of  Aries,  without  consulting  the  Pontiff  of  the  Roman 
Church,  but  from  his  own  rashness  alone,  has  usurped  and  seized  upon 
the  ordinations  of  bishops  which  in  no  way  belong  to  him  ;  for  he  re- 
moves some  illegally,  and  has  ordained  others  irregularly,  against  the 
wishes  and  remonstrances  of  the  citizens.  And  as  these  bishops  were 
not  readily  received  by  those  who  had  not  elected  them,  he  collected 
an  armed  band,  and  in  hostile  fashion  either  laid  siege  to  or  breached 
by  storm  the  defences  of  the  walls,  and  installed  by  process  of  war 
into  his  see  the  man  whose  duty  it  would  be  to  preach  peace.  ^ 

"  When  these  offences  against  the  Imperial  Majesty,  and  against  the 
reverence  due  to  the  Apostolic  See,  had  been  investigated  by  order  of 
the  holy  Pope  of  the  Cit)',  a  certain  sentence  was  passed  on  him 
{Hilary]  by  reason  of  those  whom  he  had  unduly  ordained.  And  that 
sentence  would  have  been  valid  throughout  Gaul,  even  without  the 
imperial  sanction.^  For  what  could  fail  to  be  lawful  power  over  the 
Churches,  if  supported  by  the  authority  of  so  great  a  Pontiff?  How- 
ever, this  motive  has  called  Our  attention  also  to  the  matter,  lest  it 
should  be  assumed  possible  for  Hilary  (whom  nothing  but  the  kindness 
of  the  amiable  Pontiff  suffers  to  bear  still  the  name  of  bishop),  or  for 
any  other  person,  to  mix  warfare  up  with  Church  questions,  or  to  dis- 
obey the  precepts  of  the  Roman  Pontiff.  For  by  such  outrages  the 
Faith  and  the  honour  of  Our  Empire  are  violated.  Nor  do  We  urge 
this  ground  alone,  which  is  a  crime  of  the  deepest  dye,  but,  in  order 
that  not  even  the  slightest  disturbance  may  arise  amongst  the  Churches, 
<or  religious  discipline  be  in  any  respect  relaxed,  We  decree  by  this 
perpetual  edict  that  it  shall  not  be  lawful  for  the  bishops  of  Gaul,  or  of 
ithe  other  provinces,  contrary  to  ancient  custom,  to  do  aught  without 
the  authority  of  the  venerable  Pope  of  the  Eternal  City  ;  and  whatso- 
ever the  authority  of  the  Apostolic  See  has  enacted,  or  may  hereafter 
enact,  shall  be  the  law  for  all.  So  that  if  any  bishop,  summoned  to 
trial  before  the  Pope  of  Rome,  shall  neglect  to  attend,  he  shall  be  com- 
pelled to  appearance  by  the  governor  of  the  province,  in  all  respects 
regard  being  had  to  what  privileges  Our  deified  parents  conferred  on  the 
Roman  Church.^  Wherefore  your  Illustrious  and  Eminent  Magnifi- 
>cence  is  to  cause  what  is  enacted  above  to  be  observed  in  virtue  of  this 
present  edict  and  law,  and  a  fine  of  ten  pounds  [of  gold]  is  to  be  at  once 
levied  on  any  judge  who  suffers  Our  commands  to  be  disobeyed."  * 


*  A  second  falsehood.     No  such  acts  were  committed. 

2  A  third  falsehood,  for  the  Bishops  of  Gaul  declared  the  Pope's 
sentence  canonically  void. 

3  No  evidence  exists  as  to  what  is  here  intended.  There  is  nothing 
cf  the  kind  amongst  the  acts  of  Constantius  III.  and  Galla  Placidia, 
the  actual  parents  of  Valentinian  III.,  and  the  reference  may  just 
possibly  be  to  the  disputed  rescript  of  Gratian,  previously  referred  tc. 

'^  Baron.  Ann.  445,  ix.  x. 


CHAP.  VI.]  DAWN    OF   THE    PAPAL    MONARCHY.  229 

This  secular  mandate  of  course  secured  the  reinstatement 
of  Celidonius  ;  but  St.  Hilary  did  not  yield  a  whit  as  to  the 
rights  of  the  matter,  and  though  he  had  sought  reconcilia- 
tion with  Leo  by  the  means  of  legates  whom  he  sent,  yet 
he  directed  his  envoys  not  to  agree  to  any  conditions 
involving  breach  of  the  canons,  and  of  course  they  could 
obtain  no  others.  A  very  interesting  letter  to  St.  Hilary 
from  Auxiliarius,  Prefect  of  Italy,  whose  mediation  he  had 
asked,  is  still  extant  in  the  Life  of  the  Saint  by  his  pupil, 
St.  Honoratus,  Bishop  of  Marseilles,  a  brief  extract  from 
which  is  worth  citing,  as  highly  instructive  : — 

**  I  have  been  conversing  with  the  holy  Pope  Leo.  .  .  .  I  never 
remember  any  conduct  of  your  Blessedness  which  was  stained  with 
the  disease  of  arrogance ;  but  men  take  it  impatiently  if  we  speak  as 
we  feel,  and  Roman  ears  are  more  easily  influenced  by  soft  speeches ;. 
so  if  your  Holiness  can  now  and  then  stoop  to  that,  you  gain  much 
and  can  lose  nothing.  Do  me  this  favour,  and  dispel  these  slight 
clouds  into  fair  weather  by  a  trifling  change  of  demeanour." 

St.  Hilary,  however,  was  too  high-minded  to  follow  such 
advice,  and  died  without  making  any  submission  whatever 
or  acknowledging  the  validity  of  the  Pope's  conduct.  It 
would  seem,  therefore,  that  he  also  died  excommunicated  ; 
hut  such  was  the  force  of  his  personal  holiness  that  he  is 
nevertheless  enrolled  high  amongst  the  Roman  saints  ;  nay, 
Leo  himself  speaks  of  him  as  "  Hilary  of  holy  memory," 
in  a  letter  to  the  clergy  of  Aries  on  the  election  of  his 
successor  Ravennius  in  449.^ 

It  is  impossible  to  lay  too  much  stress  on  this  nefarious 
transaction,  which  is  the  true  beginning  of  the  Papal 
usurpation  over  the  Church,  and  fitly  appears  as  the  result 
of  no  Divine  grant,  but  of  the  reckless  edict  of  a  dissolute 
secular  tyrant,  who  closed  his  infamous  career  with  the 
murder,  by  his  own  hand  and  sword,  of  the  illustrious 
general  Aetius  (the  very  person  to  whom  the  above  rescript 
was  addressed),  and  with  the  violation  of  a  noble  Roman 
matron,  decoyed  to  his  palace  by  a  fraud,  whose  husband 

'  S.  Leon.  Ep.  xxxvi. 


230  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VI. 

avenged  his  wrongs  by  shedding  the  ravisher's  blood.^ 
This  edict  of  Valentinian  III.,  not  the  speech  of  Christ 
to  Peter  uttered  at  Caesarea  PhiHppi,  is  the  charter  of  the 
modern  Papacy;  and  it  is  in  virtue  of  the  powers  conferred 
thereby  that  the  Popes  at  once  began  to  wield  the  power 
which  they  exercised  for  several  centuries  over  France, 
Spain,  Germany,  and  even  Britain :  though,  as  regards  the 
last-named  country,  there  was  not  even  the  show  of  civil 
right  which  might  be  and  was  pleaded  in  the  remaining 
Western  provinces,  because  Britain  and  Armorica,  or 
Lesser  Britain,  had  ceased  to  form  part  of  the  Empire  in 
the  year  409,  when,  finding  that  they  received  no  military 
aid  against  their  enemies,  they  threw  off  a  yoke  which 
could  no  longer  justify  itself  by  giving  protection  to  its  sub- 
jects. And  the  Emperor  Honorius,  instead  of  challenging 
their  decision  by  the  arbitrament  of  the  sword  or  any 
other  process,  issued  letters  to  the  new  States,  in  which  he 
recognised  their  independence  and  abandoned  all  claims 
to  sovereignty  over  them.  Armorica,  unable  to  defend 
itself  for  any  length  of  time,  speedily  returned  to  its 
former  allegiance,  but  Britain  never  again  constituted  a 
part  of  the  Roman  dominions,  and  consequently  the  edict 
of  Valentinian  was  thirty-six  years  too  late  for  validity 
within  its  limits.  ^  It  may,  therefore,  be  classed  with  any 
English  Act  of  Parliament  in  1819  which  might  conceiv- 
ably be  urged  as  having  authority  in  the  United  States,  in 
despite  of  the  Treaty  of  Versailles,  whereby  Great  Britain 
acknowledged  the  independence  of  the  revolted  colonies 
on  September  3rd,  1783.  After  this  bold  and  unconstitu- 
tional stroke  of  policy,  whereby  Leo  the  Great  succeeded 
in  bringing  the  Churches  of  Gaul  under  the  jurisdiction  of 
the  Roman  Chair,  the  next  matter  of  importance  in  his 
career,  though  it  had  only  an  indirect  bearing  on  the  Papal 
claims,  had  such  disastrous  and  permanent  influence  on  all 

^  Gibbon,  c.  xxxv.      Another  account  ascribes  his  death  to  some 
soldiers  of  Aetius. 

2  Gibbon,  chap.  xxxi. 


CHAP.  VI.]  DAWN    OF   THE    PAPAL    MONARCHY.  23 1 

Western  Christendom  as  a  precedent  that  it  requires  men- 
tion. Engaged  in  a  struggle  with  the  Manichees,  though 
he  put  the  Imperial  laws  in  force  against  them,  he  con- 
tented himself  with  the  penalty  of  perpetual  exile  for  such 
as  continued  obstinate  -^  but  when  consulted  by  Turribius 
of  Astorga  about  the  Priscillianists,  he  gave  a  scarcely 
qualified  approval  to  the  execution  of  Priscillian  himself 
and  some  of  his  companions,  by  order  of  the  usurper 
Maximus,  in  385,  the  first  instance  on  record  of  death 
being  imposed  as  the  Christian  penalty  for  theological 
error,  and  thus  the  primal  germ  of  the  Holy  Inquisition. 
Leo's  words  are  : — 

"  Our  fathers,  in  whose  time  the  wicked  heresy  broke  out,  took 
active  measures  throughout  the  world  that  the  impious  error  might  be 
expelled  from  the  Church  universal,  at  which  time  the  secular  princes 
also  detested  this  sacrilegious  madness  to  such  a  degree  that  they  laid 
low  its  author,  with  several  of  his  disciples,  by  the  sword  of  the  public 
laws.  For  they  saw  that  every  regard  for  personal  character  would 
be  done  away,  every  marriage  bond  would  be  loosed,  and  the  laws  of 
God  and  man  be  overthrown  together,  if  men  of  this  stamp  were 
suffered  to  live  anywhere  while  holding  such  opinions.  And  that 
strictness  was  long  helpful  to  the  mildness  of  the  Church,  which,  being 
contented  with  such  a  judgment  as  priests  can  decree,  shrinking  from 
bloody  penalties,  is  nevertheless  aided  by  the  severe  laws  of  Christian 
princes,  inasmuch  as  persons  who  dread  capital  punishment  sometimes 
have  recourse  to  a  spiritual  remedy. "  ^ 

He  omits  to  say  that  these  "  severe  laws  "  were  invari- 
ably enacted  at  the  earnest  solicitation  of  Christian  bishops, 
so  that  the  less  said  about  the  lenity  of  the  Church  in 
refraining  from  inflicting  penalties  which  the  laws,  civil  and 
ecclesiastical,  did  not  empower  the  clergy  to  impose,  the 
better. 

Leo  is  far  more  honourably  known  as  a  theologian,  for 
the  leading  part  he  took  in  the  intricate  controversies 
which  arose  out  of  the  Eutychian  heresy,  itself  in  its  incep- 
tion and  intent  a  mere  recoil  from  Nestorianism.  His 
writings  on  this  subject,  addressed  to  St.  Flavian,  Patri- 


*  Leon.  Ep  viii.  *  Leon.  Ep.  xv. 


232  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.   VI. 

arch  of  Constantinople,  and  familiarly  known  as  "  the 
Tome  of  St.  Leo,"  steer  with  much  learning,  devoutness, 
skill,  and  judgment,  the  middle  and  Catholic  course 
between  these  opposing  errors,  and  have  ever  since  ranked 
very  high  amongst  theological  treatises ;  albeit  the  Pope 
contrived  to  weave  his  dominant  idea  of  the  Divine  privi- 
leges of  his  See  into  the  web  of  a  document  in  no  wise 
concerned  with  that  controversy ;  an  artifice  wherein  he 
had  considerable  experience,  inasmuch  as  he  had  continu- 
ously done  the  same  thing  in  every  one  of  the  frequent 
cases  where  his  personal  and  official  eminence  had  induced 
the  bishops  and  clergy  of  the  time  to  refer  their  manifold 
disputes  to  him  for  his  advice,  but  which  he  was  always 
careful  to  treat  in  his  replies  as  the  acts  of  subjects,  humbly 
approaching  a  sovereign  and  infallible  authority  to  learn 
its  will.  And  the  great  depth  and  piety  of  his  sermons, 
hardly  below  St.  Augustine's,  should  not  be  forgotten. 

The  convocation  of  that  assembly  which  is  branded  in 
ecclesiastical  history  as  the  "  Robber  Synod  "  of  Ephesus, 
supplies  the  next  item  of  evidence  against  the  Petrine 
claims,  for  that  gathering  differs  in  one  most  important 
particular  from  nearly  all  the  numerous  heretical  assemblies 
which  formulated  false  doctrine.  They  were,  for  the  most 
part,  on  the  face  of  things,  party  gatherings,  scarcely  pre- 
tending to  represent  the  whole  Christian  body,  but  taking 
care  to  collect  the  abettors  of  one  particular  school  of 
opinion.  But  the  Synod  of  Ephesus  in  449  was  intended 
to  be  an  CEcumenical  Council,  to  rank  beside  Nice,  Con- 
stantinople, and  that  assembly  which  had  already  met  at 
Ephesus  in  431,  and  was  attended  by  Papal  legates.  Con- 
sequently, all  the  circumstances  attending  its  convocation 
and  proceedings,  till  the  tumults  began  which  wrecked  its 
character,  are  germane  to  the  present  inquiry,  as  attestir^g 
the  persistence  of  the  earlier  methods. 

The  summons,  then,  was  issued  by  the  Emperor  Theo- 
dosius  II.  by  a  circular  letter  to  all  the  patriarchs  and 
exarchs  in  the  Eastern  Empire,  convening  them  to  attend. 
Having  no  jurisdiction  in  the  West,  he  could  not  himself 


CHAP.  VI.]  DAWN    OF   THE   PAPAL   MONARCHY.  233 

do  the  like  to  the  bishops  there  (though  his  colleague, 
Valentinian  III.,  joined  in  issuing  the  summons),  but  he 
sent  an  invitation  to  Pope  Leo,  desiring  his  attendance. 
This  the  Pope  declined,  unless  the  Synod  should  be  con- 
vened in  some  part  of  Italy,  excusing  himself  on  the 
double  ground  of  serious  pre-occupation  and  the  absence 
of  any  precedent  for  the  attendance  of  a  Pope,  but 
promising  to  send  his  legates  to  represent  him.  If  Leo 
had  been  less  set  upon  reading  the  "  Privilege  of  Peter  " 
into  everything,  he  might  have  reflected  that  the  very  facts 
that  up  to  this  time  no  Pope  had  possessed  any  voice 
whatever  in  determining  the  place  where  a  General  Council 
should  assemble,  or  had  even  been  asked  to  preside  over 
such  an  assembly,  were  entirely  inconsistent  with  either 
privilege  or  prescription  on  behalf  of  the  See  of  Rome. 

The  bold  stand  made  at  the  Robber  Synod  by  the  three 
Roman  legates  in  defence  of  the  doctrine  formulated  by 
their  superior  in  his  famous  Tome,  and  the  shock  which 
the  murder  of  St.  Flavian  sent  throughout  the  Christian 
world,  did  much  to  augment  the  position  of  Leo ;  and  as 
St.  Flavian,  just  before  his  murder,  had  appealed  to  Leo 
and  a  true  General  Council,  the  Pope  seized  the  opportu- 
nity of  a  visit  of  Valentinian  III.  to  Rome,  and  urged  the 
Western  Emperor  to  demand  from  his  Eastern  colleague 
the  convocation  of  a  new  council,  which  the  Pope,  as 
extant  letters  of  Valentinian  III.  and  the  Empresses 
Eudoxia  and  Placidia,  obviously  written  at  his  dictation, 
clearly  show,  intended  first  as  an  instrument  for  extending 
over  the  Eastern  Church  the  same  arbitrary  powers  which 
the  edict  of  445  had  lodged  in  his  hands  as  regards  the 
West.  For  the  conditions  they  propose  are  that  the 
council  should  be  summoned  within  the  confines  of  Italy, 
that  it  should  be  under  the  presidency  of  the  Pope,  and 
be  conducted  in  such  manner  and  form  as  should  be 
prescribed   by  the  Roman  See.^     But  the  letters  do  not 

'  Epp.  S.  Leon.  ed.  Cacciari,  ii.  pp.  203-208.  *'"Ira  d  ftiKaptdj- 
TOTog  iirioKOirof;  ri/f  'rtu/ini'wv  rdXtwf,  «/T  t'/v  Upuxrvrtji'  kutu  TcaiTtav 


234  THE    PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VI. 

seem  to  have  been  very  amicably  received  in  the  East  ; 
and  an  example  of  the  most  favourable  view  then  held  of 
the  privileges  of  the  Roman  Chair  is  happily  extant  for  us 
in  an  epistle  from  the  famous  Theodoret,  Bishop  of  Cyrus, 
to  Pope  Leo,  asking  for  his  help  against  the  enemies  of 
Flavian,  on  the  ground  of  his  Primacy.  "  We  hasten,"  he 
says,  "  to  your  Apostolic  throne  to  obtain  healing  from  you 
for  the  Church's  wounds,  for  in  all  respects  the  Primacy  is 
your  fit  place  "  {dia  Travra  yap  vfxJi'  to  Trp(i)-£veit'  apfxarrei). 
If  he  had  stopped  short  there,  his  testimony  to  the  Petrine 
claims  would  have  been  invaluable ;  but  he  immediately 
goes  on  to  recount  the  grounds  of  Rome's  precedence,  and^ 
they  are  in  order  as  follows :  It  is  the  largest,  most 
splendid,  and  most  populous  of  cities,  and  the  ruler  of  the 
world,  which  has  even  imposed  its  own  name  on  all  its 
subjects.  It  is  eminent  for  the  purity  of  its  faith,  as  in  the 
days  of  St.  Paul,  and  even  more  so  ;  and  it  possesses  the 
tombs  of  Peter  and  Paul.  "  These,"  he  says,  "  have  made 
your  throne  most  distinguished ;  this  is  the  apex  of  your 
good  things."^  Not  a  word  about  the  abiding  privilege  of 
Peter,  Leo's  constant  text:  and  yet,  as  the  letter  was 
written  for  the  express  purpose  of  conciliating  the  Pope's 
goodwill,  and  was  penned  by  a  Byzantine  Greek,  it  may 
safely  be  assumed  that  the  writer  went  quite  as  far  as  he 
felt  possible  in  the  direction  of  respect  and  comphment, 
not  to  say  flattery.  Two  other  expressions  of  Theodoret's 
views  may  be  briefly  cited  here.  He  states  that  St.  Peter's 
confession  was  the  basis  and  foundation  of  the  Church  ;- 
and  complaining  to  Flavian  of  Constantinople  about  the 

t;  dpX(JioTr]g  irapeox^,  x'^puj' /cat  eviropiav  ex^iv  irf p'l  ts.  TrJQ  TricTTeojg Kai 
ifpBOJv  Kpivtiv  ,  .  .  kirivivaaiovK  T^pvr](Tdp,r}v  to  Trpbg  ri^v  ai^v  rj/xepoTTjTa 
rqv  i}if}v  alTtjniv  oiKdaiaai'  'lua  u  TrpoXsxdelg  lepivg,  avvax^^vrojv  Ik 
Tracrjjg  rfjg  oiKovfiivrig  Kai  tu>v  XoittCjv  Upewv  tVTog  rrig  'IraXiaf, 
TvavTog  irpoKpiparog  aTTOKivriQevTog^  l^  inrapxrig  Tfjv  (jTpt<popkvr]v 
aiTiav  TTfcppovricffisvy  doKifiatrigi  diayvovg,  k^oitrij  Ti^v  (XTroipaaiv  ijv  r) 
'TrioTig  Kai  6  rrig  a\r]9ovg  OtioTTjTog  \6yog  aVairit." 

'  S,  Leon.  Ep.  i.  530-  "Oyrol  rbv  vfitrepov  Trfpi^avearaTOi' 
aTTscpyvav  Opovov'  ourog  twv  dyadCJv  twu  vfiiTep<t)v  6  fcoXo^wv." 

-  Epist.  Ixxvii. 


CHAP.  VI.]  DAWN   OF   THE   PAPAL   MONARCHY.  235 

ambition  of  the  Patriarch  of  Alexandria,  the  see  of  St. 
Mark,  says  that  he  pushes  its  claim  every  way,  "  though 
knowing  perfectly  that  the  great  city  of  Antioch  possesses 
the  throne  of  mighty  Peter,  who  was  teacher  of  blessed 
Mark,  and  first  and  chief  of  the  Apostolic  choir.''^ 

The  Emperor  Theodosius  II.  returned  a  formal  refusal 
to  the  letters  of  Valentinian  III.  and  the  two  Empresses 
about  Easter,  450,  declaring  his  own  adherence  to  the 
decrees  of  the  Robber  Synod.  He  died  at  the  end  of  July 
that  Same  year,  and  was  succeeded  by  his  sister  Pulcheria, 
who  married  Marcian,  and  had  him  associated  with  her 
on  the  Imperial  throne.  The  new  sovereigns,  who  were 
orthodox,  at  once  opened  friendly  communications  with 
the  Pope,  as  also  did  Anatolius,  St.  Flavian's  successor  in 
the  chair  of  Constantinople.  But  Leo,  finding  that  their 
goodwill  did  not  extend  far  enough  to  concede  all  the 
points  which  he  had  endeavoured  to  extort  from  Theo- 
dosius II.,  wrote  to  Marcian  deprecating  the  assembling 
of  the  council  at  all,  at  any  rate  till  a  more  convenient 
season,  professedly  on  the  ground  that  the  ravages  of  war 
had  so  devastated  the  West  that  its  bishops  could  not  well 
leave  their  flocks  at  such  a  time.-  However,  no  attention 
was  paid  to  his  desire,  and  Marcian  issued  in  his  own  name 
and  in  that  of  Valentinian  III.  letters  of  summons  to  a 
General  Council  to  be  assembled  at  Nicaea,  on  Septem- 
ber I,  451.  Hefele,  following  Arendt,  endeavours  to  evade 
the  difficulty  of  this  direct  rejection  of  the  Pope's  request 
by  saying  that  the  Emperor  could  not  have  got  Leo's  letter  in 
time,  seeing  that  the  summons  was  issued  in  May,  451,  and 
Leo's  envoys  did  not  leave  Rome  till  early  in  June.  Even 
if  the  dates  here  be  allowed  as  proving  the  one  point  so 
raised,  the  real  issue  is  untouched,  because  Marcian  must 
have  had  the  letters  of  Valentinian,  Eudoxia,  and  Pulcheria 
to  his  predecessor,  Theodosius  II.,  in  his  possession  as  State 
papers,  wherein  I^o's  desire  to  have  the  council  in  Italy,  if 
at  all,  was  clearly  expressed.    And  thus  the  Fourth  General 

'  Epist.  IxxxvL  '  S.  Leon.  £p.  Ixii. 


236  THE   PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [cHAP.  VI. 

Council  of  Chalcedon  stands  out  in  history  as  not  merely 
summoned,  like  its  precursors,  by  Imperial,  not  by  Papal, 
mandate,  but  as  having  been  convened  in  direct  opposition 
to  the  Pope's  express  desire,  without  thereby  losing  its  title 
to  regularity  and  cecumenicity. 

Nevertheless,  Leo,  seeing  that  there  was  no  help  for  it, 
wrote  both  to  Marcian  and  Pulcheria,  complaining  that  his 
demand  for  either  considerable  delay  or  for  an  Italian 
council  had  been  disregarded,  but  pledging  himself  to  send 
legates  as  his  representatives,  and  he  excused  himself  from 
personally  attending,  on  the  ground  of  much  occupation.^ 

To  the  Fathers  of  the  Council  itself,  transferred  to  Chal- 
cedon instead  of  Nicaea  by  Imperial  orders,  Leo  wrote  to 
much  the  same  effect,  saying  that  he  had  been  invited  to 
attend,  but  that  the  necessity  of  the  time  and  precedents 
of  the  kind  did  not  permit  it.  And  though  he  does  not 
venture  to  say  that  the  Emperor  asked  him  to  preside,  he 
does  tell  the  Council  "  to  account  that  I  am  presiding  over 
the  Synod  in  the  persons  of  these  brethren,  Paschasinus 
and  Lucentius,  bishops,  Boniface  and  Basil,  priests,  who 
have  been  commissioned  by  the  Apostolic  See."  ^ 

To  the  legates  themselves  he  gave  peremptory  instruc- 
tions : — 

*'  You  are  not  to  suffer  the  regulations  enacted  by  the  holy  Fathers 
to  be  violated  by  any  rashness,  upholding  in  all  respects  the  dignity  of 
Our  person  in  your  own,  whom  we  have  sent  in  Our  place.  And  if 
any  persons,  relying  on  the  splendour  of  their  cities,  should  attempt 
usurpation  of  any  kind,  you  are  to  resist  it  with  fitting  steadfastness."'* 


'  Leon.  Epp.  Ixxiii,,  Ixxiv.,  and  Ixxv.  Some  texts  of  one  of  the  two 
letters  to  Marcian  contain  a  clause  to  the  effect  that  Paschasinus  of  Lily- 
bceum,  the  chief  legate,  should  preside  over  the  Council — '■'■  Prcr dictum 
fi-atrem  et  co'episcopttni  ineuni  vice  mea  synodo  debet  prcesidere''^ — a 
demand  in  full  agreement  with  Leo's  views,  but  not  undoubtedly 
authentic,  as  it  is  absent  from  other  texts.  However,  Marcian  had 
written  to  the  Pope  in  450  about  a  Council  to  be  held  " /^  atictore,'''' 
(Tov  avOtvTovvToQ  (St.  LcoD.  Ep.  i,  550) — words  which  may  be  so 
interpreted  with  a  little  pressure,  but  whose  more  obvious  meaning  is 
a  courteous  hint  that  his  sanction  was  expected. 

'  S.  Leon.  Ep.  Ixxii.  ^  Baron.  An?i.  451,  cxxxix. 


CHAP.  VI.]  DAWN    OF    THE    PAPAL    MONARCHY.  237 

The  meaning  of  this  direction  is  quite  clear.  It  was 
aimed  at  Canon  III.  of  Constantinople  in  381,  giving  that 
see  the  next  place  of  honour  after  Rome  (though  in 
strictness  not  bestowing  any  substantial  power  along  with 
that  rank),  and  so  far  repealing,  or  at  least  modifying, 
Canon  VI.  of  Nicaea,  which  puts  Alexandria  second  and 
Antioch  third,  and  is  the  "regulation"  implied  by  the 
Pope.  There  was  nothing  to  be  feared  from  the  elder 
patriarchates,  but  Constantinople  was  a  formidable  rival, 
and  accordingly  it  was  the  settled  policy  of  Rome  to  affect 
to  regard  it  as  a  mere  pretender  to  the  highest  rank,  and  as 
still  in  real  dignity  but  a  suffragan  see,  under  the  Metropo- 
litan of  Heraclea. 

There  was  a  special  reason  for  endeavouring  to  depress 
Constantinople  at  this  time.  A  then  recent  (421)  decree 
of  Theodosius  II.  had  wrested  the  province  of  Eastern 
Illyricum  from  Rome  and  transferred  it  to  Constanti- 
nople, thereby  undoing  the  work  of  several  Pontiffs,  and 
that  on  the  express  ground  that  the  new  capital  en- 
joyed all  the  prerogatives  of  elder  Rome.^  And  Boni- 
face I.  had  resisted  this  decree,  chiefly  on  the  ground  that 
Constantinople  was  not  even  third  in  rank  amongst  the 
Churches,  being  inferior  to  Alexandria  and  Antioch  in  virtue 
of  the  canons.  Until  this  contention  could  be  fully  estab- 
lished, the  Papal  hold  on  Illyricum  was  at  least  precarious. 

But  when  the  Council  met,  the  eighteen  Imperial  Com- 
missioners, as  representing  the  Emperor,  took  the  first 
place  in  the  assembly ;  and  the  Roman  legates  were 
allowed  to  take  precedence  of  all  the  prelates  assembled ; 
but  Anatolius,  Patriarch  of  Constantinople,  was  assigned 
the  second  place,  according  to  the  canon  of  381  (against 
which  proceeding  the  legates  made.no  protest"),  and  those 
of  Alexandria  and  Antioch  were  ranked  tihrd  and  fourth. 

•  *'  Non  absque  scientia  viri  reverentissimi  sacrosancta:  legis  antistitis 
urbis  Constantinopolitanoe  (qure  Romoe  veteris  proerogativa  loetatur)." 
—Cod.  Theodos.  XVI.  ii.  45. 

'  Indeed,  Paschasinus  himself,  when  objecting  to  the  order  of  pre- 
cedence observed  at  the  Robber  Synod,  when  Flavian  was  put  fifth, 


238  THE   PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VI. 

But  as  Dioscorus,  Patriarch  of  Alexandria,  was  the  person 
chiefly  accountable  for  the  crimes  of  the  Robber  Synod,  it 
was  necessary  to  call  him  to  account ;  and  in  the  very  first 
session  the  legate  Paschasinus  demanded  that  Dioscorus 
should  be  at  once  deprived  of  his  seat  and  vote  (mainly 
on  the  ground  that  he  had  held  a  synod  without  the  per- 
mission of  the  Roman  See,  "a  thing  never  done  before, 
and  not  lawful : "  a  sufficiently  bold  remark,  in  view  of  the 
General  Council  of  Constantinople  in  381),  or  else  the 
Roman  legates  would  quit  the  assembly,  in  accordance 
with  their  instructions.  No  heed  was  paid  to  this  threat,  and 
the  matter  was  gone  into  more  regularly  by  the  Imperial 
Commissioners,  whom  the  Emperor's  mandate  had  entrusted 
with  all  matters  of  strict  law  and  judicial  inquiry  which 
might  arise  in  the  Council,  with  the  proviso  that  they  were 
to  follow  the  canons,  not  the  civil  law,  in  their  decisions. 1 
The  judicial  examination  resulted  in  what  would  be  called 
by  English  law  a  "true  bill"  against  Dioscorus,  who  was 
then  removed  from  his  place  and  put  on  his  trial,  but  his 
accusers  were  obliged  to  withdraw  also  from  their  places  as 
judges.  At  the  end  of  the  ensuing  debate  Paschasinus 
called  for  the  final  condemnation  of  Dioscorus,  and  this 
being  acceded  to,  he  skilfully  worded  it  in  the  following 
terms : — 

"Therefore  Leo,  the  most  holy  Archbishop  of  Rome,  doth  by  our 
mouths,  and  in  behalf  of  the  most  holy  Synod  here  present,  and  in 
union  with  the  thrice  blessed  Apostle  Peter,  who  is  the  rock  and 
foundation  of  the  Church  Universal  and  the  basis  of  the  orthodox 
faith,  declare  that  [Dioscorus]  is  deprived  of  the  episcopal  dignity  and 
degraded  from  all  sacerdotal  rank  and  office."^ 

said,  "  We  (the  Roman  legates)  hold  Anatolius  to  be  first,"  which  the 
Bishop  of  Cyzicus  at  once  noted  as  proving  their  knowledge  of  the 
"Canons,"  i.e.,  those  of  381,  which  the  Roman  Church  affected  to 
ignore. 

'  Tillemont,  Mem.  xv.  646. 

^  Hefele,  Concih'engesch,  xi.  191  ;  also  St.  Leo,  Ep.  ad  Episcop, 
Gall.  Ixxxi.  It  is  not  unworthy  of  mention  that  the  legates  attempted 
to  include  amongst  the  grounds  for  deposing  Dioscorus  that  he  had  ex- 
communicated Pope  Leo,  but  they  could  not  secure  the  adoption  of 


CHAP.  VI.]      DAWN    OF   THE    PAPAL    MONARCHY.  239 

So  far  the  game  was  even.  The  Pope  and  his  legates 
had  lost  two  points,  in  being  forced  to  accept  a  summons  to 
a  General  Council  which  he  had  endeavoured  to  prevent, 
and  in  being  refused  permission  to  regulate  the  judicial 
management  of  the  assembly.  They  had  won  two  points, 
in  that  they  received  the  actual  ecclesiastical  presidency, 
and  had  been  suffered  to  word  the  condemnation  of  Dios- 
corus  in  terms  which  could  readily  be  interpreted  to  mean 
anything  which  the  legates  might  choose  to  read  into  them. 
The  real  struggle  now  began.  The  legates  next  called  on 
the  Council  to  accept  the  Tome  of  St.  Leo  absolutely,  and 
on  the  express  ground  that,  having  been  issued  by  the 
Universal  Pope  and  representative  of  St.  Peter,  it  was 
binding  on  the  whole  Church  in  virtue  of  such  publication. 
They  had  reason  to  hope  for  success  herein;  for  in  the 
second  session  the  Fathers,  led  by  Cecropius  of  Sebas- 
topolis  and  Florentius  of  Sardes,  had  expressed  by  accla- 
mation their  full  assent  and  subscription  to  the  Tome.^ 

But  the  Fathers  of  the  Council  were  too  shrewd  to 
commit  themselves  formally  in  any  such  fashion.  They 
accepted  the  Tome,  indeed,  but  not  till  they  had  first 
carefully  compared  it  with  the  decrees  of  the  three  pre- 
vious General  Councils  and  with  the  writings  of  the  most 
eminent  Greek  divines,  notably  St.  Cyril  of  Alexandria; 
and  finding  it  conformable  thereto,  ratified  it  as  orthodox, 
and  took  care  to  state  in  their  records  how  and  why  they 
had  done  so ;  in  marked  contrast  to  the  manner  in  which 
St.  Cyril's  own  Letter  to  Nestorius  had  been  accepted 
without  any  debate  by  the  Council  of  Ephesus.  Thus 
Anatolius  of  Constantinople  says  :  "The  Letter  of  the  holy 
Archbishop  Leo  agrees  with  the  Nicene  Creed,  with  that 
of  Constantinople,  and  with  what  was  done  at  the  Council 
of  Ephesus   under  the  holy  Cyril,  when   Nestorius   was 

that  count  by  the  synod  ;  and  nevertheless  Pope  Nicolas  I.,  writing  to 
the  Emperor  Michael  III.,  alleges  that  as  the  chief  reason  for  his  depo- 
sition, a  perversion  of  the  facts  which  Bellarmine  has  followed  i^De 
Auctorit.  Cone.  ii.  17). 
*  Mansi,  Cone.  vi.  594. 


240  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VI. 

deposed.  That  is  why  I  have  assented  to  it,  and  I  have 
willingly  subscribed  it."  Maximus  of  Antioch  says  :  "  The 
Letter  of  the  holy  Archbishop  Leo  agrees  with  the  Nicene 
exposition  of  faith,  with  that  of  Constantinople,  and  that  of 
Ephesus,  and  I  have  subscribed  it.''  And  similarly,  about 
160  bishops  expressed  their  assent  in  the  like  phrases;  but 
what  is  most  remarkable  is,  that  the  same  admission  was 
extracted  from  the  Roman  legates  themselves,  who  stated 
by  the  voice  of  Paschasinus  that  the  agreement  of  Leo's 
belief  with  that  of  the  previous  General  Councils  was  the 
one  ground  for  receiving  his  letter,  thus  :  "  It  is  clear  that 
the  faith  of  Pope  Leo  is  the  same  as  that  of  the  Fathers  of 
Nicsea  and  Constantinople,  and  that  there  is  no  difference. 
That  is  the  reason  ivhy  the  Pope's  letter,  which  has  restated 
this  faith  because  of  the  heresy  of  Eutyches,  has  been  received'' 
Not  only  so,  but  the  Acts  also  tell  us  that  many  of  the 
Eishops  present,  feeling  somewhat  doubtful  as  to  the  ortho- 
doxy of  certain  phrases  in  the  Tome,  exacted  minute 
explanations  from  the  legates,  and  declined  to  give  in 
their  adhesion  till  they  had  been  satisfied,  after  an  ad- 
journment of  the  Council  for  five  days  to  give  time  for 
quiet  collation  of  Leo's  teaching  with  Cyril's,  a  respite 
which  they  extended  to  seven  days.  What  makes  this 
point  more  curious  is  that  the  group  which  acted  thus  was 
chiefly  composed  of  the  prelates  of  that  very  diocese  of 
Eastern  Illyricum  which  was  the  bone  of  contention  be- 
tween Rome  and  Constantinople.^  The  legates  lost  far 
more  by  provoking  this  discussion  than  they  had  gained 
by  their  previous  success,  for  they  published  to  the  world 
the  fact  that  a  Council  (nay,  each  single  member  of  the 
Council  who  chose,  as  many  there  actually  did  choose)  had 
a  right  to  sit  in  judgment  on  the  writings  of  a  Pope,  and 
to  accord  approval  or  disapproval  to  them,  instead  of  ac- 
cepting them  humbly  as  the  voice  of  the  one  Vicar  of 

'  Fleury,  Hist.  Eccl.  vi.  400,  401.  St.  Leo  himself  admits  that 
the  reception  of  his  Tome  by  the  Council  gave  to  it  "supreme  and 
infallible  force,"  as  having  "confirmed  it  by  universal  inquiry,  exami- 
nation, discussion,  and  thereon  consent  and  testimony." — Ep.  cii. 


CHAP.  VI.]      DAWN    OF   THE   PAPAL    MONARCHY.  24 1 

Christ.^  But  a  yet  severer  check  awaited  them.  The 
legates  had  not  interfered  when  the  Imperial  Commis- 
sioners placed  the  Patriarch  of  Constantinople  next  to 
them  at  the  outset  of  the  Council;  yet  it  was  their  in- 
tention to  essay  the  repeal  of  Canon  III.  of  Constan- 
tinople, which  assigned  him  that  rank,  and  the  fact  that 
the  acts  and  minutes  of  the  Council  were  allowed  to  run  in 
the  joint  names  of  the  Pope  and  of  the  Council  itself  gave 
them  hopes  of  success. 

But  in  the  fifteenth  session  Aetius,  Archdeacon  of  Con- 
stantinople, proposed  that  the  Council  should  settle  finally 
the  position  and  rights  of  that  Church.  The  Roman  legates 
at  once  took  alarm,  and,  declaring  that  they  had  no  instruc- 

•  It  is  a  favourite  Ultramontane  plea  that  the  Council  did,  in  fact, 
so  accept  the  Tome,  because  of  certain  acclamations  of  "  Peter  hath 
spoken  by  Leo,"  which  were  uttered  as  it  was  read.  But,  apart  from 
the  objection  that  shouts  are  not  canons  or  decrees,  the  Fathers  of  the 
Council  added  further  :  "The  Apostles  thus  taught,  Cyril  thus  taught^ 
Leo  and  Cyril  have  taught  alike.  '  And  what  is  yet  more  to  the  point,, 
in  the  eleventh  session,  after  the  Imperial  Commissioners  had  given  a 
decision  which  pleased  the  Bishops,  these  said  :  "  God  gives  judgment 
through  you" — (Mansi,  Coiic.  vii.  289);  words  of  weighty  import  in< 
connexion  with  their  ruling  on  Canon  XXVIIL  The  acclamations 
of  the  Council  of  Ephesus  when  Pope  Celestine's  letter  in  condemna- 
tion of  Nestorius  was  read,  usefully  serve  to  illustrate  and  assess  the 
value  of  those  of  Chalcedon.  They  were:  "The  Council  thanks. 
Celestine,  the  second  Paul ;  Cyril,  the  second  Paul ;  Celestine,  defen- 
der of  the  Faith  ;  Celestine,  accordant  with  the  Council.  One  Celes- 
tine, one  Cyril,  one  faith  in  the  whole  Council,  one  faith  through- 
out the  world."  Another  point  may  be  mentioned  here.  St.  Gregory 
the  Great,  rebuking  John  the  Faster  for  styling  himself  Oecumenical 
Bishop,  wrote  on  the  subject  to  the  Patriarchs  of  Alexandria  and 
Antioch  :  "This  name  'Universal'  was  offered  during  the  Council 
of  Chalcedon  to  the  Pontiff  of  the  Apostolic  See  .  .  .  but  no 
one  of  my  predecessors  ever  consented  to  use  so  profane  a  title.'* 
These  words  have  been  taken  to  mean  either  that  the  Council  itself 
offered  the  title,  or  recognised  it  when  offered.  In  fact,  the  title, 
"Oecumenical  Archbishop  and  Patriarch,"  was  applied  to  Leo 
unofficially  only,  by  some  private  Alexandrian  petitioners  against 
Dioscorus,  who  were  probably  acute  enough  to  guess  what  lan- 
guage would  best  secure  the  aid  of  the  Roman  legates,  the  chief  of 
whom,  in  one  of  his  speeches,  described  the  Pope  as  "  Archbishop  of 
all  the  Churches." 


242  THE    PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VI. 

tions  from  the  Pope  on  the  subject — which,  as  we  have 
seen,  was  a  little  on  this  side  of  the  truth — rose  and  left 
the  Council.  The  absence,  however,  of  five  members  from 
so  large  a  body,  even  though  now  probably  thinned  by  the 
departure  of  many  Bishops,  was  less  severely  felt  than  they 
expected.  Not  one  followed  their  example,  or  lent  them 
his  countenance;  and  the  famous  Canon  XXVIII.,  re- 
affirming the  secondary  place  of  Constantinople,  giving  it, 
further,  actual  patriarchal  jurisdiction,  and  declaring,  what 
analytical  comparison  shows  to  be  true,  that  the  Roman 
primacy  rests  on  no  Divine  charter  or  Petrine  inheritance, 
but  on  a  human  grant  from  political  reasons,  was  unani- 
mously enacted,  without  so  much  as  a  debate  being  raised 
upon  it ;  though  several  Bishops  who  did  not  oppose  it 
refrained  from  attaching  their  signatures.  The  exact  terms 
of  its  palmary  clause  merit  fresh  citation  here: — "For  the 
Fathers  suitably  bestowed  precedency  on  the  throne  of  Old 
Rome,  because  it  was  the  Imperial  city."  Hereupon  the 
legates  returned  to  the  Council,  protested,  demanded  the 
revocation  of  the  canon,  and  denounced  it  as  a  contempt 
of  the  Papal  Chair  and  a  violation  of  the  Nicene  canons  ; 
also  alleging  that  it  could  not  be  the  spontaneous  expression 
of  the  Council's  opinion,  but  must  have  been  extorted  by 
force.  The  Council  declared,  by  acclamation,  that  it  had 
voted  freely,  and  reaffirmed  the  canon.  Then  the  legates 
fell  back  on  the  alleged  breach  of  canon  law ;  and  the 
Commissioners  directed  the  evidence  to  be  adduced.  Pas- 
chasinus  produced  a  falsified  copy  of  the  Nicene  canons, 
containing  these  words  in  the  beginning  of  the  sixth  :  "  The 
Roman  Church  hath  always  held  the  primacy."  The  genuine 
Greek  texts  were  produced  in  reply,  and  proved  to  have  no 
such  words  (still  found  only  in  the  Prisca  Latin  version) ; 
though  even  if  they  had  been  there,  that  would  not  have 
affected  the  canon  in  debate,  which  still  left  Rome  the  first 
place,  and  did  but  state  the  grounds  on  which  she  had 
obtained  it.i     And  no  help  could  be  secured  from  the  only 

'  This  forged  canon  is  the  only  one  ever  textually  adduced  by  the 


CHAP.  VI.]         DAWN    OF   THE    PAPAL    MONARCHY.  243 

persons  whose  interests  seemed  really  at  stake,  the  Bishops 
of  the  patriarchates  of  Alexandria  and  Antioch,  who  ex- 
hibited no  jealousy  for  the  privileges  of  those  ancient 
Churches,  probably  seeing  the  insincerity  of  the  patronage 
offered  them  as  clearly  as  moderns  can  now  do,  and  having 
good  reason  to  expect  that,  did  they  yield  to  the  voice  of 
the  tempter,  they  would  find  the  Httle  finger  of  Rome 
thicker  than  the  loins  of  Constantinople.  And  the  matter 
was  finally  summed  up  by  the  Imperial  Commissioners, 
who  said  *'  Our  interlocutory  (^mXaXm)  has  been  confirmed 
by  the  whole  Council." 

The  anger  and  indignation  of  Leo  at  this  first  serious 
defeat  he  had  met  in  his  hitherto  triumphant  career  of 
aggression  against  the  liberties  and  rights  of  Christendom, 
and  at  the  flat  denial  of  his  favourite  thesis  by  the  decision 
of  so  vast  and  powerful  an  assembly,  can  scarcely  be  exag- 
gerated. 

It  has  been  already  mentioned^  how  he  wrote  to  the 
Empress  Pulcheria,  declaring  that  he  had  quashed  the  canon, 
as  inherently  void,  on  the  ground  that  it  contravened  what 
he  chose  to  allege  as  the  inviolable  and  irrefragable  Nicene 
canons.  His  words  in  a  similar  letter  to  Anatolius  of 
Constantinople  are:  "Those  holy  and  venerable  Fathers 
who  in  the  city  of  Nice  .  .  .  enacted  laws  of  ecclesiastical 
canons  which  will  last  to  the  end  of  the  world  .  .  .  and  if 
aught  be  attempted  anywhere  otherwise  than  as  they  de- 
creed, it  is  quashed  without  delay."  ^ 

But  sufficient  attention  has  not  been  drawn  to  his  marked 


Popes  in  proof  of  their  claims.  Their  rule  was  to  appeal  to  "ancient 
canons  and  constitutions  of  the  Fathers,'  without  specifying  the  parti- 
tular  clauses  relied  on  ;  and  when  such  allegations  were  not  simply 
fictitious,  they  referred  to  mere  local  enactments  of  the  diocesan 
synods  of  Rome. 

*  Chap.  iv.  p.  165. 

'  "  Sancti  illi  et  venerabiles  Patres  qui  in  urbe  Niccena  .... 
mansuras  usque  in  finem  mundi  leges  ecclesiasticorum  canonum  con- 
diderunt  ....  et  si  quid  usquam  aliter  quam  illi  statuere  prae- 
stunitur,  sine  cunctatione  cassatur." — Leon.  Ep.  Ixxx, 

R  2 


244  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VI. 

bad  faith  in  the  matter,  of  a  piece  with  his  conduct  at  all 
times  when  his  schemes  of  aggression  were  involved. 

In  the  first  place,  he  had  himself  boldly  violated  the  fifth 
Nicene  canon  in  receiving  Celidonius  of  Besangon  to  com- 
munion before  his  condemnation  by  his  metropolitan  had 
been  duly  heard  on  appeal,  and  before  any  restoration  in 
his  own  province ;  and  no  sacredness  can  be  claimed  for 
the  sixth  canon  which  does  not  also  belong  to  the  fifth. 
And  even  the  sixth  alleges  for  itself  no  higher  ground  than 
"old  customs,"  not  Divine  mandates.^  And  he  also  knew 
that  Canon  IV.  of  Nice  I.  had  been  set  aside  in  the  Roman 
Church  by  his  predecessor  Siricius  on  his  single  responsi- 
bility.2 

Next,  he  could  not  be  unacquainted  with  that  letter  of 
his  predecessor  Julius  I.  in  reply  to  Danius,  Flacillus,  and 
others  of  the  Antiochene  clergy  who  had  written  to  him, 
wherein  that  Pope  states  very  clearly  that  the  Council  of 
Nicsea  had  expressly  provided  for  the  possible  future  re- 
vision of  the  decrees  of  one  Synod  by  another,  and  did  not 
hold  any  to  be  final  and  irreversible.  The  crucial  words 
are  these : — 

**  Wherefore  the  Bishops  who  assembled  in  the  great  Synod  at 
Nicaea  not  without  God's  counsel  suffered  that  the  decrees  of  that 
former  Synod  should  be  examined  in  another  Synod,  in  order  that 
they  who  were  judges,  having  before  their  eyes  a  second  future  judg- 
ment, might  make  investigation  with  all  carefulness,  and  those  on 
whom  judgment  was  passed  might  be  persuaded  that  they  had  been 
condemned  not  by  the  hostility  of  their  former  judges,  but  on  grounds 
of  justice."  ^ 

Thirdly,  Leo  had  himself  fully  accepted,  as  his  prede- 
cessors had  done,  and  as  his  own  legates  also  did  on  this 
occasion,  the  alterations  made  by  the  Council  of  Constan- 
tinople in  the  Nicene  Creed  ^ — surely  a  matter  of  much 
graver  import  to  Christendom  and  the  Faith  than  a  mere 

'  Ta  apxala  t9tj  Kpariirio. — Can.  Nic.  vi. 

^  See  ante,  chap.  iii.  sect.  13. 

'  Jul.  Papa,  ap.  St.  Athanas.  A^ol. 

*  Hardouin,  i.  815.         "" 


CHAP.  VI.]  DAWN    OF   THE   PAPAL    MONARCHY.  245 

question  of  honorary  precedence  amongst  sees — and  had 
thus  barred  his  own  plea  of  Nicene  irreformability.i 

Fourthly,  writing  to  the  Fathers  of  Chalcedon  them- 
selves, and  assenting  to  their  decrees  on  doctrine,  while 
withholding  his  assent  from  Canon  XXVIII. ,  he  alleges 
that  it  had  been  enacted  under  duresse  {extortis  assenta- 
tionibus),  a  false  statement,  which  was  either  gratuitous  on 
his  part  or  due  to  his  being  deceived  by  his  legates,  but 
which,  at  any  rate,  he  did  not  retract. 

Nevertheless,  by  asserting  several  times,  as  he  does  in 
his  epistles,  the  lofty  character  and  claims  of  Chalcedon 
in  all  matters  of  doctrine — the  strongest  passage  is  this, 
addressed  to  the  Emperor  Leo  I., 

**....  if  you  do  not  suffer  the  holy  Synod  of  Chalcedon,  which 
established  the  doctrine  touching  the  Lord  Christ's  Incarnation,  to  be 
assailed  by  any  attempt  at  repeal ;  because  in  that  Council,  assembled 
by  the  Holy  Ghost,  all  things  were  so  established  by  such  full  and 
perfect  definitions  thai  nothing  can  be  added  or  taken  away  from  that 
enactment  (n?^//(rf),  which  was  promulgated  by  Divine  Inspiration."- — 

Leo  in  fact  destroyed  the  plea  for  the  divine  character  of 
the  Roman  primacy  ;  for  if  that  position  be  true,  then 
Canon  XXVIII.  was  not  a  mere  ecclesiastical  irregularity, 
but  a  doctrinal  heresy,  as  denying  what  is  now  that  which 
Leo  tried  to  make  it  fourteen  centuries  sooner,  the  artiadus 
stantis  vel  cadetitis  EcdesicB  Romance^  the  Privilege  of  Peter 
divinely  annexed  to  the  Roman  See.  But  if  the  Council 
were  thus  doctrinally  orthodox,  and  spoke  by  the  Holy 

*  It  is  worthy  of  mention  in  this  connexion  that  his  successor,  Leo 
III.  (795-816),  was  unable  to  prevent  the  general  adoption  of  the 
Filioque  clause  in  this  Creed,  which  had  been  inserted  therein  by  the 
Third  Council  of  Toledo  in  589.  Despite  a  formal  decree  {a  nostnl 
parte  decernitur)  he  issued  against  the  interpolation,  and  his  setting 
the  standard  text  up  publicly  in  Greek  and  Latin,  the  new  fomi  con- 
tinued to  establish  itself  soon  in  the  Italian  Churches,  so  that  it  was 
accepted  even  in  the  local  Roman  Church  by  1014,  when  it  was  in- 
serted in  the  Ordo  Komanus ;  so  the  Pope  was  not  "  supreme  Teacher  " 
at  that  time. 

'  Leon.  Ep.  ex  v. 


246  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VI. 

Ghost,  it  either  was  not  in  error  at  all  in  enacting  Canon 
XXVIII.,  or  the  error,  if  any,  was  not  a  doctrinal  one; 
so  thali  the  primacy  of  the  Pope  is,  on  Leo  the  Great's 
showing,  at  best  a  mere  question  of  history,  on  which  error 
is  trivial  and  unimportant,  and  in  no  sense  touches  the 
Faith.  And  it  suffices  here  to  say  that,  though  Anatolius 
of  Constantinople,  undoubtedly  through  pressure  put  upon 
him  by  Marcian  and  Pulcheria  (who  had  vainly  endea- 
voured to  obtain  the  Pope's  consent  to  the  new  rule), 
wrote  a  very  humble,  but  practically  evasive,  letter  to  Leo, 
excusing  himself  from  any  active  share  in  enacting  Canon 
XXVIII.  of  Chalcedon — an  excuse  which  was  not  true — 
yet  the  canon  itself  remained  unshaken  by  the  Pope's 
refusal  to  acknowledge  it,i  and  has  continued  ever  since 
to  regulate  the  order  of  the  sees  in  the  Oriental  Church,  no- 
protest  having  ever  been  raised  by  Alexandria  or  Antioch. 
And  it  is  scarcely  premature  to  state  here  that  Rome  her- 
self had  formally  and  publicly  to  give  in  on  the  subject  in 
that  Synod  of  Constantinople  in  859  which,  rejected  by  the 
East,  is  counted  by  Rome,  in  whose  interests  and  under 
whose  influence  it  was  held,  as  the  Eighth  General  Council, 
and  whose  twenty-first  canon  begins  thus  : — 

"  We  decree  that  none  of  the  mighty  ones  of  the  world  shall  attempt 
to  dishonour  or  attempt  to  remove  from  his  own  throne  any  of  those 
who  preside  over  the  Patriarchal  Sees,  but  to  account  them  worthy  of 
all  respect  and  reverence,  especially  the  most  holy  Pope  of  Old  Rome, 
and  next  the  Patriarch  of  Constantinople,  afterwards  those  of  Alex» 
andria,  Antioch,  and  Jerusalem. " 


'  Baronius,  indeed,  alleges  that  Marcian  revoked  the  Canon  in  an 
edict  of  454,  but  Fleury  [H.  E.  xxviii.  54)  and  Tillemont  {Mem.  xv. 
731)  agree  that  the  law  in  question  did  but  carry  out  the  intentions  of 
the  Council,  by  abolishing  certain  "pragmatic  sanctions,"  accorded  by 
the  State  inconsistently  with  the  ecclesiastical  canons.  And  Liberatus 
of  Carthage,  who  was  one  of  the  envoys  to  the  Roman  Church  in  535,. 
states  expressly  in  his  treatise  on  the  Nestorian  and  Eutychian  con- 
troversies, that  what  was  thus  "  established  by  the  Council  continues- 
to  the  present  day,  under  the  patronage  of  the  Emperors,  and  despite 
the  resistance  of  Rome." — {Breviar.  de  Causa  Nestorii  et  Eutychetis, 
c.  13.) 


CHAP.  VI.]  DAWN    OF  THE    PAPAL    MONARCHY.  247 

These  words,  though  followed  immediately  by  language 
of  servile  deference  to  the  Roman  See,  are  in  truth  the 
formal  refutation  of  Leo  the  Great's  one  plea  against 
Canon  XXVIII.  of  Chalcedon,  and,  by  thus  retrospec- 
tively affirming  that  Canon,  are  the  epitaph  on  the  grave 
of  the  Petrine  legend  which  was  dug  by  the  Fourth 
CEcumenical  Council. 

The  distinguished  personal  character  of  Leo  the  Great, 
his  fearless  orthodoxy,  the  eminent  and  patriotic  services 
he  had  twice  done  to  the  city  of  Rome,  by  averting  the 
attack  of  Alaric  and  mitigating  that  of  Genseric,  and  the 
absence  of  any  self-seeking,  even  in  his  all-embracing  and 
otherwise  unscrupulous  ambition  on  behalf  of  his  see  and 
office,  all  tended  to  make  the  system  of  which  he  was  in  a 
large  measure  the  creator  durable  in  the  West  and  trans- 
missible to  his  successors.  And  it  may  fairly  be  doubted, 
entirely  as  his  claims  cover  logically  the  largest  demands 
made  subsequently  by  a  Hildebrand  or  an  Innocent  III., 
whether  he  really  grasped  the  full  meaning  of  his  own  state- 
ments and  policy,  or  foresaw  how  readily  the  office  of  su- 
preme guardian  and  interpreter  of  the  Church's  faith,  laws, 
and  ordinances, which  he  arrogated  to  himself,  might  glide,  as 
it  did  glide,  into  an  imperial  autocracy,  refusing  to  be  bound 
by  the  laws  it  imposed  on  all  others,  ceasing  to  be  the  first 
servant  of  the  law,  and  claiming  to  be  its  master,  in  the 
terras  of  those  words  of  Innocent  III.,  embodied  in  the 
Canon  law:  "Secundum  plenitudinem  potestatis  de  jure 
possumus  supra  jus  dispensare."  ^ 

The  weapon  which  Leo  had  forged  against  the  liberties 
of  the  Gallican  Churches  was  not  long  suffered  to  lie  idle. 
Hilarus,  his  immediate  successor  in  the  Papal  Chair,  who 
had  been  his  archdeacon,  legate,  and  trusted  pupil,  wrote 
to  I^ontius,  Archbishop  of  Aries,  in  November,  462,  after 
a  previous  letter  in  January,  which  had  signified  his  own 
election  as  Pope,  complaining  that  no  acknowledgment  of 
its  receipt  had  been  sent,  and  declaring  that,  as  it  was  neceS' 

•  Decret,  Gre^.  IX.,  8.  iv. 


248  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VI. 

sary  that  the  discipHne  of  the  Church  should  be  uniform 
everywhere,  it  was  the  duty  of  Leontius  to  take  measures 
for  that  end,  and  to  send  a  competent  envoy  to  Rome,  that 
the  Pope  might  question  him  on  all  such  matters  as  needed 
amendment,  and  send  his  directions  accordingly.^  He 
followed  up  this  with  a  third  letter  in  December,  462, 
addressed  to  Leontius  and  the  Bishops  of  the  provinces  of 
Vienne,  Lyons,  Narbonne,  and  the  Pennine  Alps,  directing 
them  to  hold  a  Synod  every  year  for  the  purpose  of  en- 
forcing Roman  discipline  iypracepta  Apostolka),  and  of 
referring  to  the  decision  of  the  Papal  Chair  all  the  graver 
questions  which  might  arise."  This  is  a  very  remarkable 
fact  in  ecclesiastical  history,  as  showing  the  steady  per- 
sistence with  which  the  Popes  held  to  the  policy  vainly 
attempted  by  Victor  I.  in  the  second  century :  that  of 
making  even  the  local  usages  of  Rome  binding  in  detail 
on  all  Churches.  It  is  true  that  the  scheme  was  never 
fully  carried  out,  since  even  now  the  Tridentine  Canons 
do  not  by  any  means  all  run  in  France ;  but  it  was  never 
lost  sight  of,  and  remains  the  ideal  theory  of  Ultramon- 
tanism  to  the  present  day.  But  even  when  thus  acting, 
Hilarus  made  one  slip  by  admitting  the  civil  origin  of  the 
vast  authority  he  claimed  to  wield :  for  in  a  letter  con- 
sequent on  a  dispute  as  to  jurisdiction  between  Leontius 
of  Aries  and  Mamertus  of  Vienne,  he  says  : — 

"  Nothing  in  the  way  of  authority  which  has  been  conferred  on  our 
brother  Leontius  by  my  predecessor  of  holy  memory  can  be  abro- 
gated ;  .  ,  .  .  because  you  are  to  know  that  it  has  been  decreed  by 
ihe  law  of  Christian  princes  [i.e.,  the  edict  of  Valentinian  III.]  that 
whatever  the  Pontiff  of  the  Apostolic  See  has  pronounced  upon  his 
own  investigation  to  be  done  by  the  Churches  and  their  rulers,  for  the 
peace  of  all  the  Lord's  priests  and  the  observance  of  discipline,  in  the 
removal  of  confusion,  is  to  be  reverently  received  and  steadily  com- 
plied with  ;  nor  can  anything  which  is  supported  by  ecclesiastical  and 
royal  ordinance  be  uprooted."^ 

This  claim  amounts  to  no  less  than  the  right  of  abro- 

'  Baronius,  Ann.,  462,  §§  3,  4.  ^  Ibid^  462,  §  9. 

^  Ibid.  464,  §  7. 


CHAP.  \a.]         DAWN    OF   THE    PAPAL    MONARCHY.  249 

gating  all  local  canons,  and  of  reducing  all  synods  short  of 
General  Councils  to  mere  consultative  assemblies,  entitled 
to  do  no  more  than  merely  report  to  Rome  the  information 
they  had  collected,  but  it  betrays  its  weakness  in  the  very 
act  of  alleging  its  original  Erastian  warrant. 

Another  incident  of  this  same  Pope's  reign  serves  to 
illustrate  clearly  a  different  form  of  encroachment ;  which  at 
once  betrays  consciousness  of  its  illegality  on  the  part  of  those 
affected  by  it,  and  shows  the  difficulty  of  effectual  resistance, 
even  at  that  comparatively  early  date,  on  the  part  of  feeble 
and  disorganized  local  Churches  against  the  most  powerful 
and  highly  organized  See  in  the  world.  Two  difficulties  had 
almost  simultaneously  risen  in  the  Spanish  Ciiurch.  The 
Bishop  of  Calahorra,  a  suffragan  of  the  Archbishop  of 
Tarragona,  had  assumed  metropolitical  rights,  and  even 
ordained  bishops  to  minor  sees  in  his  neighbourhood  with- 
out the  knowledge  or  consent  of  his  superior;  and  the 
Provincial  Synod  of  Barcelona  had  translated  to  that  See, 
with  the  full  assent  of  its  clergy  and  laity,  one  Irenaeus,  a 
bishop  of  the  province,  whom  the  previous  Bishop  of  Bar- 
celona had  from  his  deathbed  recommended  for  the  post. 
Some  doubts  being  felt  as  to  the  compatibility  of  this  pro- 
ceeding with  Canon  XV.  of  Nicasa,  the  matter,  by  the 
advice  of  the  civil  governor,  a  personal  friend  of  the  Pope, 
was  referred  to  Rome  for  decision,  at  the  same  time  that 
the  action  taken  against  the  encroaching  Bishop  of  Cala- 
horra was  also  notified.  Ascanius  of  Tarragona,  and  all 
the  other  bishops  of  that  province,  wrote  to  the  Pope, 
beginning  thus : — 

**  Although  there  be  no  obligatory  ecclesiastical  discipline  [binding 
us  to  refer  this  matter],  yet  in  point  of  fact  we  felt  that  we  ought  to 
apply  to  that  privilege  of  your  See,  in  right  whereof  the  single 
preaching  of  blessed  Peter  shone  forth  to  enlighten  all  throughout 
the  world,  when  he  had  received  the  keys  of  the  kingdom  after  the 
resurrection  of  the  Saviour  ;  and  the  primacy  {primipafus)  of  His 
vicar  is  so  eminent  that  it  should  be  feared  and  loved  by  all ;  there- 
fore we,  firstly  doing  homage  in  your  person  to  God,  Whom  you  serve 
blamelessly,  have  recourse  to  the  faiih  proclaimed  by  the  Apostolic 
voice,  seeking  an  answer  from  that  q,uarter  whence  no  directions  are 
given  erroneously  or  hastily,  but  all  with  true  pontifical  deliberation." 


250  THE   PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VI. 

It  is  to  be  remembered,  however,  that  in  this  letter  the 
Pope  was  simply  asked  to  approve  something  which  had 
been  already  decided  on  and  carried  out  by  the  local 
authority  with  sufficient  precedents,  and  (as  Tillemont  re- 
marks) that  no  promise  of  revoking  such  action  in  the 
event  of  Papal  disapproval  occurs.  Hilarus,  perhaps 
thinking  such  independence  in  action  a  dangerous  omen, 
but  imperfectly  compensated  by  the  complimentary  terms 
of  the  synodical  letter,  decided  the  two  causes  inversely  as 
regards  their  merits,  as  they  appear  to  a  dispassionate 
reader  now.  He  revoked  the  translation  of  Irenaeus  in 
terms  of  severe  rebuke  to  the  Metropolitan  and  Synod  of 
Tarragona,  but  entirely  condoned  the  numerous  offences 
of  Silvanus  of  Calahorra,  and  even  confirmed,  in  defiance  of 
all  precedent,  his  irregular  consecrations  and  intrusions  of 
bishops,  on  the  plea  of  the  calamities  of  the  times,  and  of 
avoiding  the  appearance  of  harshness  (words  which  Tille- 
mont glosses  as  meaning  that  Silvanus  was  too  powerful  to 
be  safely  meddled  with) ;  albeit  the  deviation  from  the 
canons  in  the  former  case  is  at  most  a  very  doubtful  point 
of  ecclesiastical  law,  whereas  Silvanus  had  openly  violated 
numerous  enactments  of  councils,  and  unquestionably  in- 
curred the  penalty  of  deposition.  It  is  true  that  the  Pope 
went  through  the  form  of  holding  a  Synod  at  Rome,  which 
formulated  these  decrees ;  but  no  purely  local  Roman 
councils  had  ever  so  much  as  the  shadow  of  independence, 
being  mere  courts  of  Papal  registration.  There  is  no 
record  of  the  manner  in  which  these  decisions  were  received 
in  Spain ;  but  they  are  themselves  a  sufficiently  incisive 
comment  on  the  good  faith  of  the  Popes  as  custodians  and 
administrators  of  the  conciliar  laws  of  the  Church,  and  on 
the  wisdom  of  the  synodical  epistle  cited  above. 

Under  Pope  Simplicius,  the  successor  of  Hilarus,  who 
sat  from  468  to  483 — an  eventful  period,  which  saw  the 
downfall  of  the  Western  Empire — some  further  slight 
advances  were  made  in  pushing  the  Papal  claims  to  uni- 
versal jurisdiction,  at  any  rate  in  the  West :  the  most  note- 
worthy instances  being  an  intrusion  on  the  metropolitan 


CHAP.  VI.]  DAWN   OF   THE    PAPAL    MONARCHY.  25 1 

rights  of  the  Bishop  of  Ravenna  (whose  province  lay  out- 
side of  those  suburbicarian  regions  within  which  alone  the 
Popes  had  up  to  that  time  exercised  direct  authority),  and 
the  appointment  of  a  permanent  legate  in  Spain.  Simpli- 
cius  made  some  attempts  also  to  interfere  in  Eastern  affairs  ; 
but  the  anarchy  which  prevailed,  both  in  Church  and  State, 
especially  during  the  recrudescence  of  Monophysitism  in 
Eg>^pt,  rendered  all  effort  in  this  direction  useless;  and  it  was 
reserved  for  his  successor,  Felix  III.,  to  renew  the  struggle 
under  somewhat  more  favourable  conditions. 

The  Emperor  Zeno,  acting,  as  it  would  seem,  with  the 
advice  of  Acacius,  Patriarch  of  Constantinople,  a  learned 
and  able  courtier-prelate  and  man  of  the  world,  issued  in 
482,  shortly  before  the  death  of  Pope  Simplicius,  the 
famous  document  known  as  the  Henoticon^  or  "Act  of 
Union,"  in  order  to  allay  those  renewed  quarrels  between 
the  Nestorian  remnant,  the  Eutychians,  and  the  Catholics, 
which  had  broken  out  afresh  after  the  Council  of  Chal- 
cedon.  In  itself  more  than  patient  of  an  orthodox  inter- 
pretation, and  honestly  intended  to  bring  about  the  peace 
of  Christendom,  the  Henoticon  was  yet  of  a  wholly  lay  and 
civil  nature,  and  contained  words  which  at  least  seemed  to 
cast  a  shght  on  the  decrees  of  Chalcedon  ;  and  while  citing 
with  approval  the  Twelve  Anathemas  of  St.  Cyril  of  Alex- 
andria  against  Nestorius,  which  had  become  in  a  sense  the 
text-book  of  the  Eutychians,  it  passed  over  in  entire  silence 
the  Tome  of  St.  Leo,  the  arsenal  of  their  adversaries.  For 
these  reasons  the  Henoticon  was  exceedingly  unpopular  at 
Rome.  The  feeling  of  irritation  was  increased  by  the  fact 
that  two  leaders  of  the  heterodox  party — Peter  Mongus 
and  Peter  the  Fuller,  titular  patriarchs  of  Alexandria  and 
Antioch — had  signed  it,  however  dishonestly  (for  it  was 
abhorred  by  the  Eutychians  generally),  and  were  there- 
upon upheld  by  Acacius  of  Constantinople  (who  had 
previously  been  their  principal  opponent  and  denouncer) 
against  the  rival  Catholic  claimants  of  those  two  great 
Sees,  and  notably  John  Talaia  of  Alexandria,  whose  de- 
position had  been  procured  because  he  had  refused   to 


252  THE   PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VI. 

notify  his  election  to  Constantinople,  though  doing  so  to 
Rome.  Talaia  appealed  in  person  to  Pope  Simplicius,  who 
sided  strongly  with  him,  and  he  carried  on  that  appeal 
before  the  next  Pope,  Felix  III.  That  Pontiff  cited  Acacius 
to  appear  before  him  at  Rome,  to  stand  his  trial  at  the 
Papal  tribunal,  in  virtue  of  the  power  to  bind  and  loose 
conferred  on  the  Apostle  Peter  and  his  successors ;  and  at 
the  same  time  issued  a  monition  to  the  Emperor  Zeno 
(wherein  he  alleged  that  St.  Peter  spoke  in  him,  his  Vicar, 
and  Christ  in  St.  Peter)  to  compel  the  attendance  of 
Acacius  "  before  the  Apostle  Peter  and  his  episcopal 
brethren." ^ 

This  was  a  new  departure,  a  plan  for  turning  the  appel- 
late jurisdiction  claimed  so  far  by  Rome  into  a  direct 
and  coactive  jurisdiction;  a  bold  attempt  to  extend  the 
power  of  Rome  over  the  entire  East,  for  three  out  of  the 
four  Oriental  patriarchates  were  directly  concerned  in  the 
controversy,  as  the  fourth  became  a  little  later ;  and  one 
special  motive  was  unquestionably  to  effect  a  practical  re- 
peal of  that  Canon  XXVIII.  of  Chalcedon,  which  Leo  the 
Great  had  pretended  to  quash,  but  which  remained  the 
undoubted  law  of  Eastern  Christendom,  and  gave  Con- 
stantinople equal  privileges  with  Rome.  The  submission 
of  Acacius  to  the  citation  would  have  been  a  confession  ot 
inferiority  and  subordination,  and  was  therefore  a  stake 
well  worth  playing  for.  But  before  the  Papal  legates,  Vitalis 
and  Misenus,  left  Rome  with  the  citation  and  monition, 
envoys  from  Cyril,  archimandrite  of  the  Acoemetse,  one  of 
the  enemies  of  Acacius  at  Constantinople,  reached  the 
Pope  with  fresh  accusations  against  the  Patriarch.  These 
appeared  of  such  importance  that  Felix  delayed  the  action 
of  the  legates,  directing  them  to  confer  directly  with  Cyril 
before  delivering  their  credentials  and  other  papers.  This 
delay  gave  the  Court  timely  warning,  and  the  legates  were 
arrested  on  their  arrival  at  Abydos,  and  their  papers  seized. 
Cowed  by    their  imprisonment,  and   worked   on   by  the 

'  Hardouin,  Co7U.  ii.  829-831. 


CHAP.  VI.]  DAWN   OF   THE   PAPAL    MONARCHY.  253 

Patriarch,  the  legates  consented  to  hold  public  communion 
with  him,  with  the  legate  of  Peter  Mongus,  and  with  the 
other  supporters  of  the  Henoticon  ;  and  on  the  news  reach- 
ing Rome,  the  Pope  convened  a  synod  there  of  sixty-seven 
bishops,  in  which  they  were  degraded  and  excommuni- 
cated, and  the  sentence  was  extended  to  Acacius  himself, 
on  the  ground  of  that  supreme  Papal  authority  alleged  to 
be  acknowledged  by  the  spurious  prefix  to  the  Sixth  Canon 
of  Nicsea.  as  glossing  the  Petrine  charter  of  St.  Matt.  xvi. 
18,  which  is  also  named  in  the  decree. 

Excommunications  of  great  prelates  were  no  novelties  in 
ecclesiastical  histor}',  as  the  case  of  St.  Athanasius,  to  cite 
no  more,  amply  proves.  But  there  are  peculiarities  in  this 
sentence  on  Acacius  which  stamp  it  as  diverse  from  all  pre- 
ceding ones,  and  as  the  most  daring  attempt  yet  made  at 
innovation  on  the  canon  and  statute  law  of  the  Church 
Catholic  As  a  rule,  what  had  been  meant  hitherto  by  an 
excommunication  of  this  kind  was  merely  suspension  of 
intercommunion.  Bishop  A,  in  issuing  such  a  sentence  in 
respect  of  Bishop  B,  did  but  notify  publicly  the  fact  that, 
until  B  had  cleared  himself  of  some  charge  by  disproof  or 
retractation,  A  could  not  hold  communion  with  him  or  his 
adherents.  That  is  to  say,  it  was  a  protest,  and  a  disclaimer 
of  complicity,  but  little  more.  Contrariwise,  the  decree 
which  Felix  III.  pronounced  against  Acacius  declared  him 
finally  degraded  from  all  sacerdotal  and  ministerial  func- 
tiorrs,  and  cut  off  for  ever  from  the  communion  of  the  faith- 
ful.i  In  the  next  place,  the  trial  of  a  Patriarch  by  any 
tribunal  short  of  a  General  Council,  such  as  had  condemned 
Nestorius  and  Dioscorus,  was  a  casus  omissus  in  the  eccle- 
siastical procedure  of  the  time  :  just  as  modern  English 
ecclesiastical  law  provides  no  means  for  trying  a  criminous 
archbishop.  But  Felix  appears  to  have  launched  this  sen- 
tence on  his  own  single  responsibility,  as  though  he  had 
been  empowered  to  do  so  in  virtue  of  some  acknowledged 
canon  or,  at  any  rate,  some  universally  received  custom.    It 

'  llardouin,  u.s. 


254  THE   PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VI. 

is  a  moot  point  whether  Acacius  was  condemned  in  the 
synod  which  deposed  the  two  legates,  and  the  evidence  is 
rather  against  it,  as  may  be  seen  in  Hefele's  attempt  to 
prove  the  contrary.  It  is  as  follows  :  (i)  The  Pope  alone 
signed  the  letter  announcing  the  decree  of  deposition  ;  (2) 
the  Greeks  made  this  a  ground  of  objection,  as  showing 
that  no  synod  had  concurred ;  (3)  Pope  Gelasius,  in  reply- 
ing to  this  objection,  instead  of  alleging  that  a  synod  did 
unite  in  the  condemnation,  declares  that  the  Pope  had  full 
power  of  acting  alone  in  the  matter  (Gelas.  Ep.  ad  Episcop. 
£>ardan.).  On  the  other  side  are  the  pleas  that  it  was  usual 
for  the  Pope  to  sign  alone,  and  that  the  Greek  objection 
was  either  that  the  Roman  synod  was  not  a  General 
Council,  or  that,  having  been  summoned  for  a  different 
purpose — that  of  trying  the  peccant  legates — it  was  not 
competent  to  enter  on  such  a  wholly  different  matter  as  the 
trial  of  the  second  Bishop  of  Christendom. 1  Hefele  does 
not  mention  the  one  fatal  objection,  that  the  acknowledged 
canon  law  of  the  time  never  contemplated  the  trial  of  any 
bishop  save  in  his  own  province,  and  by  his  own  compro- 
vincials,  so  that  the  interference  of  a  wholly  foreign  synod, 
convened  under  a  foreign  prelate,  however  exalted  in  rank, 
had  no  judiciary  status  whatever.  And  further,  the  Pope 
acted  on  this  occasion  as  a  judge  of  first  instance,  not  even 
falling  back  on  his  alleged  right  to  hear  all  appeals,  for  no 
suit  against  Acacius  had  been  instituted  in  the  East,  and 
there  was  thus  no  judge  or  judgment  to  appeal  from.  This 
objection  was  actually  raised  at  Rome  itself  by  some 
Orientals  who  were  present  when  the  sentence  was  pro- 
mulged,  and  the  reply  they  received  was  that  in  an  Italian 
council  the  Pope  was  supreme,  and  that,  as  General  Visitor 
of  all  Churches,  he  was  entitled  to  decree  all  such  sentences 
in  his  own  name  and  on  his  own  authority.^  There  had 
been  a  precedent,  indeed,  for  the  action  of  the  Roman 
synod,  assuming  it  to  have  had  a  share  in  the  proceeding, 

'  Hefele,  Concilienges,  xii.  213. 

2  Pagi.  Crit.  in  Baron.  Ann.  485,  §  5. 


CHAP.  VI.]  DAWN    OF   THE    PAPAL   MONARCHY.  255 

but  not  a  very  helpful  one.  It  was  the  condemnation  of 
St.  Chrysostom  by  Theophilus  of  Alexandria  and  an  Egyp- 
tian Council,  to  which  the  Saint  refused  to  give  heed,  on  the 
express  ground  that,  being  outside  his  province,  they  had 
no  right  to  try  him  ;i  and  he  appealed  from  their  sentence 
to  a  General  Council,  in  which  he  was  upheld  by  Pope 
Innocent  I.,  who  did  not  attempt  to  decide  the  matter  by 
his  own  sole  prerogative.  Felix  entrusted  the  formal  docu- 
ments of  deposition  to  a  secret  envoy  named  Tutus,  a 
Roman  priest,  who  procured  a  monk  to  fasten  the  decree 
to  the  Patriarch's  vestment  at  the  gates  of  the  cathedral. 
A  riot  ensued,  in  which  some  monks  seem  to  have  been 
killed  by  the  Patriarch's  friends,  but  he  himself  took  no 
notice  of  their  share  in  the  transaction,  addressing  himself 
to  Tutus  alone,  whom  he  induced,  it  is  said  by  bribery,  to 
communicate  publicly  with  him,  and  thus  a  second  time  to 
discredit  a  Roman  legation.  As  to  the  sentence  itself,  so 
far  from  regarding  it  and  making  any  submission,  he  ex- 
communicated and  anathematized  the  Pope  in  turn,  and 
expunged  his  name  from  the  diptychs  of  the  Church,  an  act 
in  which  he  had  the  support  and  sympathy  of  almost  every 
Oriental  prelate,  including  even  Andrew  of  Thessalonica, 
Papal  Vicar  for  Eastern  Illyricum,  and  thus  began  a  schism 
which  lasted  thirty-five  years.  Acacius  died  in  489,  and 
was  succeeded  in  the  chair  of  C  P.  by  Fravitta,  whose  elec- 
tion was  acceptable  to  the  Pope,  and  who,  indeed,  seemed 
to  justify  that  opinion  by  writing  a  complimentary  letter  to 
him  as  the  representative  of  St.  Peter's  faith  and  primacy, 
and  begging  to  be  received  into  communion  with  him.  But 
when  Felix  learnt  that  Fravitta  had  no  intention  of  recog- 
nising the  validity  of  the  Papal  sentence  on  Acacius  by 
striking  that  prelate's  name  out  of  the  diptychs,  he  refused 
the  proflfered  reconciliation.  Fravitta  died  in  less  than  four 
months  from  his  elevation,  and  was  succeeded  by  Euphe- 
mius,  a  man  of  unquestioned  and  zealous  orthodoxy,  who 
went  so  far  in  his  overtures  for  peace  with  Rome  as  to  erase 

»  Pallad.  Dial,  2. 


256  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CIIAP.  VI. 

the  name  of  Peter  Mongus  from  the  diptychs,  and  to  replace 
that  of  Felix.  But  the  Pope  preferred  to  continue  the 
schism,  by  insisting  on  the  erasure  of  the  name  of  Acacius 
as  excommunicate,  and  of  Fravitta  as  not  having  been  ac- 
knowledged by  Rome,  though  there  was  no  pretence  of  any 
doctrinal  error  on  the  part  of  Euphemius ;  and  as  this  con- 
cession could  not  be  made  without  yielding  the  whole 
matter  in  dispute,  and  acknowledging  the  Papal  right  to 
over-ride  all  ecclesiastical  law,  nothing  could  be  done,  and 
Felix  died,  as  he  had  lived,  the  responsible  author  of  the 
first  great  schism  in  the  Catholic  body  ;  nominally  as  the 
champion  of  orthodox  belief,  but  really  as  endeavouring  to 
establish  practically  that  monarchy  over  the  Church  Uni- 
versal which  had  been  theoretically  sketched  out  by  his 
predecessors  Innocent  and  Leo. 

The  next  successor  of  Felix  III.  in  the  Roman  Chair, 
Gelasius  I.  (a.d.  492),  took  yet  another  step  forward  in  the 
path  of  aggression,  which  had  now  become  the  normal 
course  of  every  Pope,  by  sending  no  letters  to  the  Patriarch 
of  Constantinople  announcing  his  accession  to  the  Papacy, 
though  such  had  been  up  to  that  time  the  unbroken  usage. 
Gelasius  declared,  in  reply  to  the  remonstrances  of  Eu- 
phemius, who  told  him  plainly  that  the  name  of  Acacius 
could  not  be  erased,  that  although  all  other  Churches  were 
bound  in  duty  to  send  such  missives  to  Rome,  there  was 
no  reciprocal  necessity  in  the  matter,  but  it  was  merely  a 
mark  of  Papal  grace  and  favour  to  such  prelates  as  deserved 
it  by  loyal  communion  with  the  Roman  See,  amongst  whom 
Euphemius  could  not  be  reckoned  until  he  abandoned  the 
cause  of  Acacius,  who,  though  confessedly  no  heretic  him- 
self, had  become  infected  by  communicating  with  such  as 
were  unquestionably  heretical ;  no  account  being  taken  by 
the  Pope  of  the  fact  that  a  formal  abjuration  of  the  heresies 
in  question  had  preceded  the  act  of  communion. 

In  the  following  year  Gelasius,  availing  himself  of  an 
embassy  sent  to  the  Emperor  by  Theodoric  the  Ostrogoth, 

*  Baron.  Amt.  492,  §§  10-25. 


CHAP.  VI.]  DAWN    OF   THE    PAPAL   MONARCHY.  257 

King  of  Italy,  despatched  an  encyclical  letter  to  the  Oriental 
bishops,  and  another  letter  to  the  Emperor  singly,  defend- 
ing his  action  in  the  matter  of  Acacius  from  the  constitu- 
tional objections  raised  by  the  Greeks  against  its  legality. 
His  reply  is,  first,  that  he  had  merely  executed  the  decrees 
of  Chalcedon  against  the  Eutychians  and  all  their  sup- 
porters, an  act  which  lay  within  the  competency  of  every 
Christian  bishop.  Next,  in  meeting  the  objection  that  Peter 
Mongus  had  publicly  renounced  the  Eutychian  heresy  before 
being  received  into  communion  by  Acacius,  and  was  there- 
fore not  legally  and  openly  a  heretic,  whatever  he  might  be 
secretly,  he  answers  (in  contradiction  to  his  earlier  plea) 
that  Mongus,  having  been  bound  by  the  sentence  of  St. 
Peter,  could  not  be  loosed  by  any  lesser  authority  ;  and  as 
no  sentence  of  absolution  from  Rome  had  preceded  his 
reception  to  communion,  that  act  was  wholly  invalid.  And 
thirdly,  he  boldly  challenges  the  count  that  Felix  and  him- 
self had  violated  the  canons,  by  alleging  that  the  Greeks 
had  no  right  to  appeal  to  any  canons  whatever,  having 
themselves  violated  all  canon  law  by  the  m.ere  fact  of  refus- 
ing obedience  to  the  Primatial  See.  To  it,  he  says,  appeals  lay 
open  from  all  Christendom  by  canon  law,  whereas  no  appeal 
from  it  was  recognised,  for  though  it  had  a  right  to  judge 
all,  it  could  be  judged  by  none,  nor  could  any  sentence  it 
had  once  pronounced  be  set  aside  by  any  authority,  but 
must  simply  be  obeyed.  ^ 

The  fact  that  the  Pope  nowhere  ventures  to  name  the 
canons  which  invested  his  See  with  these  unbounded 
powers,  shows  that  he  was  simply  trading  on  the  possible 
ignorance  and  certain  weakness  of  many  of  those  whom  he 
addressed  :  for  nothing  is  more  indisputable  than  that  no 
scrap  or  shred  of  evidence  in  support  of  such  claims  can  be 
produced  from  the  acts  and  canons  of  any  early  Council 
whatever ;  and  what  he  meant  by  canons  was  no  more  than 
the  ex-parte  comments  of  his  predecessors  in  the  Papal 
Chair  on  Canon  VI.  of  Nicaea,  and  the  ex-parte  claims  and 

'  Baron.  Ann.  493,  §§  13,  14 
S 


258  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VI. 

declarations  based  on  those  comments.  This  comes  out 
very  clearly  in  a  yet  more  startling  document,  the  synodi- 
cal  letter  he  addressed  to  the  bishops  of  Eastern  Illyricum, 
who  had  shown  some  inclination  to  side  with  Constanti- 
nople in  the  dispute.  He  procured  a  declaration  of  Papal 
right  from  a  Roman  Synod  of  seventy  bishops,  alleging  the 
charter  of  St.  Matt.  xvi.  18  as  the  sole  ground  of  the  Roman 
Primacy,  apart  from  any  synodical  law  or  constitution  what- 
ever, and  recognising  only  Alexandria  and  Antioch  as 
Patriarchal  Sees,  because  both  connected,  indirectly  and 
directly,  with  the  Apostle  Peter.^ 

On  this  followed  the  epistle  to  the  Illyrians,  whose  most 
salient  propositions,  separated  from  the  charges  against 
Acacius,  set  forth  at  much  length,  are  these  :  (i)  That  the 
Pope  has  a  right,  as  Universal  Bishop,  to  try  all  cases  of 
heresy  by  himself,  without  the  aid  or  intervention  of  any 
council  whatever ;  (2)  that  the  Holy  See  has  power  to 
revise  and  reverse  all  ecclesiastical  sentences,  to  sit  in  final 
judgment  on  all  Churches,  and  cannot  have  its  decisions 
called  in  question  by  any  one ;  (3)  that  it  has  the  power  of 
reversing  all  conciliar  decisions  ;  (4)  that  synods  have  no 
further  use  than  that  of  giving  greater  publicity  to  sentences 
which  in  fact  rested  on  Papal  authority  alone,  itself  having 
no  limitation  to  its  discretion  in  executing  the  laws  of  the 
Church  ;  (5)  that  the  Roman  Primacy  is  divine,  and  ante- 
cedent to  all  ecclesiastical  legislation ;  (6)  nay,  superior  to 
it,  in  that  no  canons  or  conciliar  decrees  whatever  can 
narrow  that  original  jurisdiction,  or  are  so  much  as  valid 
for  any  purpose  affecting  the  rights  of  the  Roman  See, 
unless  with  its  express  or  implied  sanction  ;  (7)  that  no 
power,  secular  or  conciliar,  can  confer  any  rank  in  the 
Church,  unless  such  as  is  acknowledged  by  the  Pope,  so 
that  the  decrees  of  Constantinople  and  Chalcedon,  erecting 
the  former  city  into  a  Patriarchate,  were  null  and  void, 
and  it  remained  in  right  a  mere  suffraganate  of  the  Exarch 
of  Heraclea ;  (8)  that   the   Pope   may  use  any  means  he 

'  Baron.  Aim.  494,  §§  20,  21. 


CHAP.  VI.]  DAWN    OF   THE    PAPAL   MONARCHY.  259 

pleases  for  the  suppression  of  any  assumption  of  spiritual 
character  in  derogation  of  the  Holy  See,  if  the  ordinary 
tribunals  should  prove  insufficient  for  the  purpose.^ 

Such  was  the  position  taken  up  by  a  Pope  at  the  close 
of  the  fifth  century,  and  it  is  clear  that  even  the  Vatican 
decrees  themselves  add  almost  nothing  to  so  vast  and  wide- 
reaching  a  programme,  in  which  the  most  daring  assertion 
takes  the  place  of  proof,  evidently  regarded  as  entirely 
superfluous.  Gregory  VII.  and  Innocent  III.  did  nothing 
to  enlarge  these  claims — save  in  the  one  particular  that 
Gelasius  admitted  the  duty  of  Bishops  to  obey  the  Crown 
in  temporal  matters  - — and  did  but  translate  them  as  far  as 
possible  into  practical  action.  But  no  intelligent  student 
of  history  will  need  any  further  proof  of  their  untenability 
than  the  broad  fact  that  it  needed  six  more  centuries  of 
incessant  struggle  to  bring  them  to  bear  even  in  the  West, 
while  their  failure  to  affect  the  East  has  continued  to  the 
present  day.  And  a  canonist's  conclusive  answer  to  the 
plea  that  long  acceptance  by  Western  Christendom  has 
established  a  prescription  which  legitimates  and  validates 
the  Papal  Claims  is  the  contrary  maxim  of  Canon  Law  :  Non 
firmatur  tradu  temporis  quod  de  jure  ab  initio  non  subsistit. 
{Reg.  Jur.  lib.  vi.  Decretal.) 

*  Hardouin,  Cone.  ii.  905-916.  ^  See  infra  p.  256. 


S  2 


26o  THE  PETRINE  CLAIMS.       [CHAP.  VII. 


CHAPTER   VII. 

LEGAL   BREAKS    IN    THE    CHAIN    OF    PRESCRIPTION. 

It  is  a  commonplace  of  history  that  the  removal  of  the  seat 
of  empire  from  Rome  to  Constantinople  had  a  considerable 
share  in  establishing  the  sway  of  the  Popes  over  Western 
Europe.  The  rival  of  greatest  power  and  dignity  was 
withdrawn  to  a  distance,  instead  of  being  actually  or  poten- 
tially upon  the  spot,  and  the  occupant  of  the  Papal  chair 
was  forced,  even  had  he  been  unwilling,  into  the  position 
of  arbiter  and  guide  in  the  troublous  anarchy  of  the  two 
centuries  which  followed  the  irruption  of  the  Barbarians. 
And  it  was  impossible  for  Constantine  the  Great  to  transfer 
the  unequalled  prestige  and  august  men^ries  of  the 
"  Eternal  City  "  to  the  shores  of  the  Bosphorus  along  with 
the  Government  offices  and  the  shadowy  Senate.  All  that 
remained  behind  was  inherited  by  the  dignitary  whose 
possession  of  the  ancient  mistress  of  the  world  wore, 
almost  from  the  moment  of  this  change,  the  semblance  of 
actual  sovereignty ;  though  it  was  not  for  more  than  eight 
centuries  later  (1198)  that  the  Pope  was  even  in  theory 
King  of  Rome,  or  more  than  the  Emperor's  chief  vassal 
within  its  walls. 

But  there  is  another,  and  in  some  respects  more  powerful, 
factor  in  the  rapid  development  of  Papal  power  during  the 
period  between  the  sixth  and  eighth  centuries  which  has 
perhaps  not  attracted  like  notice  from  historians.  It  is 
this :  the  Empire  was  older  than  the  Church,  far  more 
perfectly  organized  as  an  administrative  system  until  a  long 
time  had  elapsed,  and  covered  for  centuries  a  far  wider 
area.  It  was  in  many  respects  a  consummate  piece  of 
statecraft,  it  had  all  the  arts  of  two  civilisations  at  its  back, 
and  it  had  watched  the  growth  and  progress  of  the  Church 


CHAP.  VII.]    BREAKS    IN    THE   CHAIN    OF    PRESCRIPTION.    26 1 

with  a  fear  and  suspicion  which  took  shape,  as  all  students 
know,  in  ten  persecutions.  This  fear  and  suspicion  were 
very  far  from  disappearing  with  the  conversion  of  the 
Empire,  though  their  manifestation  was  then  different  from 
the  rough  methods  of  Valerian  or  Diocletian.  It  was  still 
the  care  of  statesmen  to  prevent  the  Church  from  growing 
too  powerful,  from  becoming  an  imperium  in  imperio^  able 
to  disturb  the  symmetry  of  Government.  And  the  tradi- 
tions of  a  statecraft  sharpened  and  polished  by  long  cen- 
turies of  political  experience  proved  stronger  in  the  East 
than  the  tentative  and  undeveloped  priestcraft  of  the  eccle- 
siastics who  tried  at  any  time  to  match  themselves  against  it. 
But  in  the  West,  after  the  break-up  of  the  Empire,  all  these 
conditions  of  the  struggle  between  Church  and  State  were 
precisely  reversed.  To  understand  the  situation,  there  is 
nothing  more  helpful  than  to  compare  the  map  of  Europe  as 
it  was  at  the  close  of  the  fourth  century  with  its  aspect  in  the 
sixth.  At  the  former  date  the  whole  of  what  we  now  call 
Turkey,  Greece,  Roumania,  Servia,  Hungary,  Germany 
south  of  the  Danube,  Italy,  Switzerland,  France,  Spain, 
Portugal,  and  England,  formed  integral  parts  of  a  single 
realm,  ruled  by  one  monarch,  or  at  most  by  two,  who  were 
viewed  as  colleagues  rather  than  as  rivals,  and  with  one 
system  of  law  current  throughout.  At  the  latter  epoch  this 
vast  territory  is  broken  up  into  a  number  of  petty  States 
under  the  rule  of  Gepidae,  Ostro-Goths,  Suevi,  Moeso-Goths, 
Franks,  Burgundians,  Alemanni,  Huns,  Thuringians,  West- 
Goths,  Longobards,  Saxons,  Heruli,  and  various  minor 
tribes,  owning  some  undefined  submission  to  their  more 
powerful  neighbours,  and  suffered  to  share  their  spoils  on 
those  terms.  Except  for  the  general  similarity  of  tribal 
customs  amongst  races  of  the  same  stock,  there  is  little  to 
represent  uniformity  of  law ;  scarcely  so  much  as  the  notion 
of  international  comity  is  noticeable;  and  each  petty 
monarch  takes  the  sword  as  the  one  principle  of  statecraft, 
whether  for  external  defence  or  internal  administration. 
Save  in  the  one  case  of  England,  where  the  Teutonic  invaders 
made  a  war  of  extirpation  on  the  polity,  ecclesiastical  and 


262  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VII. 

civil,  which  they  found  there,  deliberately  wasting  the 
cities  and  substituting  a  rude  paganism  for  Christianity, 
the  conquerors  of  the  Empire  were  powerfully  impressed 
by  the  strange  civilisation  with  which  they  came  in  con- 
tact, and,  though  inevitably  destroying  much  of  it,  yet 
retained  such  fragments  as  they  were  able  to  understand 
and  assimilate.  But  as  they  naturally  displaced  the  pro- 
vincial officers,  and  set  up  their  own  governors,  judges,  &c., 
in  their  stead,  the  civil  tradition  was  thoroughly  broken; 
while  the  ecclesiastical  body,  being  little,  if  at  all,  interfered 
with,  continued  to  represent  and  transmit  all  that  survived 
of  the  elder  culture  and  law.  The  Church  was  everywhere 
similarly  organized,  with  the  powerful  See  of  Rome  as  a 
common  centre  of  appeal  and  assistance ;  and  the  clergy, 
however  low  their  intellectual  development  may  appear 
when  tried  by  either  an  earlier  or  a  later  standard,  were 
far  more  than  a  match,  in  all  diplomacy,  for  their  untutored 
victors,  who  had  no  conception  of  the  contest  in  which 
they  were  engaged,  being  unfamiliar  with  any  kind  of 
power  save  that  of  open  force  with  the  strong  hand.  Con- 
sequently, when  any  fresh  attempt  at  extending  the  authority 
of  the  Roman  See  over  some  Western  Church  was  made, 
there  was  no  such  co-operation  of  the  civil  power  in  defence 
of  the  threatened  liberties  as  always  had  to  be  reckoned  with 
in  schemes  of  aggression  upon  the  East ;  for  the  barbarian 
kinglets  neither  comprehended  the  issues  involved,  nor, 
even  had  this  been  otherwise,  could  they  have  held  their 
own  for  a  moment  against  the  trained  diplomacy  and  the 
world-wide  organization  of  the  Roman  Curia.  And  one 
most  noteworthy  result  of  this  comparative  weakness  and 
superlative  ignorance  on  the  part  of  the  lay  authority  every- 
where in  the  West  was,  that  the  hierarchy  was  no  longer 
content,  as  it  had  previously  been,  and  as  it  has  never 
ceased  to  be  in  Oriental  Christendom,  with  dominion  in 
the  strictly  spiritual  sphere,  but  aimed  steadily  thencefor- 
ward at  temporal  supremacy  also,  at  the  subjugation  of  the 
laity  to  ecclesiastical  law,  to  the  extent  of  regarding  even 
emperors  and  kings  as  but  the  chief  civil  officers  of  the 


CHAP.  VII.]    BREAKS    IN    THE    CHAIN    OF    PRESCRIPTION.    263 

Church,  who  derived  their  commission  from  her  consecra- 
tion, and  were  removable  at  her  pleasure  for  any  failure  in 
submissiveness. 

It  is  this  new  departure  which  differentiates  the  fifth 
century  from  its  predecessor  ;  for,  as  we  have  seen,  every 
claim  afterwards  put  forward  for  the  supreme  authority  of 
the  Roman  Chair  over  the  whole  Catholic  Church  in 
spiritual  matters  had  been  already  formulated  then  in  the 
most  precise  terms.  But  Gelasius  I.,  the  very  Pontiff  whose 
demands  on  behalf  of  his  See  were  so  high  and  far-reaching, 
had  admitted  in  the  clearest  language  the  duty  of  sub- 
mission on  the  part  of  the  clergy  to  the  lay  power  in  civil 
matters. 1  And  this  is  all  the  more  noticeable  because  of 
the  explicitness  of  his  demands  for  the  submission  of  the 
civil  power  in  its  turn  to  the  clergy  in  all  matters  of  religious 
doctrine.- 

The  fifth  century  came  to  a  close  while  the  two  great 
bodies  which  composed  the  Catholic  Church  were  divided 
by  the  schism  due,  in  the  first  instance,  to  the  ambition  of 
Felix  III.,  and  more  than  persevered  in  by  Gelasius  I. 
The  Pope  who  next  succeeded,  Anastatius  II.,  was  a  man 
of  milder  and  more  equitable  temper  than  either  of  his 
predecessors,  and  would  gladly  have  made  reasonable  con- 
cessions to  Constantinople,  with  the  view  of  restoring  unity. 
This  retractation  of  the  Leonine  policy,  already  the  accepted 
programme  of  the  Roman  Church,  proved  so  distasteful 


•  ".Si  enim  quantum  ad  ordinem  pertinet  disciplinoe,  cognoscentes 
Imperium  tibi  superna  dispositione  collatum,  legibus  tuis  ipsis  quoque 
parent  religionis  antistites,  ne  vel  in  rebus  mundanis  exclusae  videantur 
obviare  sententiae ;  quo,  rogo,  te  decet  affectu  eis  obedire,  qui  pro 
erogandis  venerabilibus  sunt  attributi  mysteriis  ? "  (Gelas.  Ep,  ad 
Anastat.  Imp.  ap.   Baron.  Ann.  494,  iv.). 

'  "  Nosti  etenim,  fili  clementissime,  quod  licet  praesideas  humano 
generi  dignitate,  rerum  tamen  proesulibus  divinarum  devotus  colla 
submittis,  atque  ab  eis  causas  tuae  salulis  expetis  ;  inque  sumendis 
caelestibus  sacramentis,  eisque  (ut  competit)  disponendis,  subdi  te 
del^re  cognoscis  religionis  ordine,  potius  quam  prajesse.  Nosti  itaque 
inter  hsec,  ex  illorum  te  pendere  judicio,  non  illos  ad  tuam  redigi  velle 
voluntatem"  {Ibid.  iii.). 


264  THE    PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VII, 

that  great  obscurity  hangs  over  the  whole  abortive  negotia- 
tion, and  all  that  is  certainly  known  is  that  the  Pope  sent  a 
legation  to  the  Emperor,  consisting  of  two  distinguished 
Bishops,  Cresconius  of  Todi  and  Germanus  of  Capua, 
entrusted  with  a  letter  wherein — albeit  the  claims  of  the 
Roman  Chair  to  sovereign  rank  in  the  Church  in  virtue  of 
the  Petrine  privilege  are  stated  in  the  opening  paragraphs 
according  to  the  fashion  set  by  Leo  the  Great — phrases 
stand  which  imply  at  least  a  doubt  of  the  finality  of  a  Papal 
sentence,  as  necessarily  binding  in  the  other  world.  The 
Pope  says : — 

"Our  predecessor  Pope  Felix  and  Acacius  are  both  doubtless  in 
that  place  where  no  one  can  fail  to  receive  the  meed  of  his  deserts 
from  so  great  a  Judge.  .  .  .  The  blessed  Apostle  counsels  us  not 
to  venture  to  pass  judgment  on  matters  touching  which  none  can 
judge  better  or  more  truly  than  God  ;  lest  any  should  take  on  himself 
to  act  rashly  in  this  respect  ;  and  on  that  account  the  unity  and  peace 
of  the  Church  might  be  destroyed.  .  .  .  We  therefore  beseech 
your  Clemency  that  the  name  of  Acacius  may  be  specially  passed  over 
in  silence,  and  seeing  that  he  caused  offence  and  scandal  for  many 
reasons  to  the  Church,  let  him  be  passed  over  in  compliance  with  this 
special  appeal ;  since,  as  we  have  said,  the  deserts  of  each  member  of 
-the  whole  priestly  body  can  in  no  wise  escape  that  Judge  who  knows 
what  should  be  meted  out  to  each  according  to  the  account  of  his 
stewardship  of  his  gifts,  and  to  whom  alone  the  thoughts  are  open."  ^ 

This  is  something  very  different  from  the  earlier  demand 
that  the  name  of  Acacius  should  be  publicly  erased  from 
the  diptychs  of  Constantinople,  as  a  sinner  of  whose  fate  no 
doubt  could  be  entertained,  since  lying  under  the  Pontifical 
anathema.  Nor  did  the  placability  of  Anastatius  stop  here. 
The  Liber  Po7ttificalis  tells  us  further  that  he  consented  to 
hold  communion  with  Photinus,  a  deacon  of  Thessalonica, 
who  had  never  broken  off  communion  with  Acacius,  and 
that  he  even  purposed  the  restoration  of  that  Patriarch's 
name  to  the  Western  diptychs.  Its  testimony  on  this  head 
has  been  denied  by  Ultramontane  writers,  but  there  are 
some  convincing  proofs  that,  whether  these  special  acts  are 

'  Baron.  Ann.  497,  iv.-v. 


CHAP.  VII.]    BREAKS    IN    THE  CHAIN    OF    PRESCRIPTION.    265 

truly  ascribed  to  Anastatius  or  not,  they  do  not  overpass 
his  actual  concessions  ;  for  in  the  letter  already  cited  he,  in 
fact,  revokes  the  most  salient  clause  of  his  predecessor's 
sentence  on  Acacius  by  acknowledging  the  validity  of  the 
sacraments  and  orders  conferred  by  him,  and  that  too  in  a 
paragraph  wherein  he  says  that  the  Emperor,  whom  God  has 
appointed  "  His  vicar  on  earth,"  is  bound  to  take  cogni- 
sance of  such  matters.i  Baronius,  while  affecting  to  dis- 
credit the  charges  of  the  Liber  Potitificalis^  shows  his  own 
belief  and  feeling  by  observing  (much  as  Platina  had  done 
a  century  earlier) : — 

' '  But  if  any  one  chooses  to  assert  contentiously  that  Anastatius  was 
too  much  inclined  to  restore  the  name  of  Acacius  to  the  diptychs 
whence  it  had  been  erased,  but  was  unable  to  accomplish  it  because 
anticipated  by  death  ;  that  is  the  very  reason  for  admiring  more  and 
more  God's  providence  towards  the  Roman  Church,  seeing  that  He 
withdrew  from  this  life  the  stumbling  Pontiff  who  presided  over  the 
Apostolic  See,  before  he  could  carry  out  his  designs,  and  that  he  was 
punished  with  death  before  he  could  be  so  much  as  tempted  by  Festus 
the  envoy  to  sign  the  Henoticon  of  Zeno.  For  we  know  that  it  has 
often  happened  through  the  will  of  God,  as  the  principal  way  whereby 
He  is  always  wont  to  safeguard  the  integrity  of  the  Catholic  faith,  that 
whoso  was  about  to  bring  the  Catholic  purity  of  the  Roman  Church 
into  peril  has  been  cut  off  by  a  very  sudden  death."* 

Anastatius  did,  in  fact,  die  on  November  17,  498,  having 
sat  just  a  week  short  of  two  years.  How  persistent  was  the 
feeling  aroused  against  him  in  the  Roman  Church  for  pre- 
ferring the  peace  of  Christendom  to  the  authority  of  his  See 
may  be  gathered  from  the  fact  that  Dante,  without  doubt 
representing  the  accepted  tradition  of  his  own  day,  depicts 
Anastatius  as  entombed  in  hell,  because  of  his  connexion 
with  Photinus.3 

The  death  of  the  Pope  gave  the  signal  for  another  of  those 
sanguinary  contests  in  the  choice  of  a  successor  which  had 
already  stained  the  Roman  annals.  A  hasty,  but  valid, 
election  placed  Cselius  Symmachus,  a  convert  from  Pagan- 
ism, and  the  candidate  of  the  party  which  may  be  most 

*  Baron.  Ann.  497,  x.  •  Ihid.  xxviii. 

'  Dante,  Inferno^  Cant.  xi.  4. 


266  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VII. 

easily  defined  as  the  Ultramontane  one,  in  the  Papal  Chair, 
and  he  was  daly  installed  in  the  Basilica  of  Constantine. 
But  the  Senator  Festus,  leader  of  the  section  which  desired 
peace  with  the  East,  procured  on  the  same  day  the  election 
of  the  Archpriest  Laurentius,  who  was  enthroned  in  Sta. 
Maria  Maggiore.  Civil  strife,  attended  with  pillage  and 
slaughter,  whose  guilt  seems  attributable  equally  to  the 
rival  factions,  immediately  broke  out,  and  continued  till 
both  agreed  to  submit  the  election  to  the  arbitration  of  the 
Arian  sovereign  of  Italy,  Theodoric  the  Ostrogoth.  The 
party  of  Symmachus  assented  with  much  reluctance  to  this 
appeal  before  a  civil  authority,  but  had  no  other  practical 
course  open  to  it.  However,  Theodoric  confined  himself 
strictly  to  the  single  question  of  the  voting,  declining  any 
examination  into  the  personal  merits  of  the  competitors, 
and  ascertaining  that  the  election  of  Symmachus  was  not 
only  prior  in  point  of  time,  but  that  he  had  received  the 
actual  majority  of  votes,  promptly  decided  in  his  favour  : 
nevertheless  requiring  that  some  security  should  be  given 
against  any  future  breach  of  the  public  peace  in  the  event  of 
a  disputed  election  to  the  Papacy.  Accordingly,  the  king 
issued  a  precept  for  the  convention  of  a  Synod  to  draw  up 
regulations  for  future  elections,  to  insure  their  orderliness 
and  tranquillity.  This  was  not  altogether  an  innovation  on 
his  part.  Pope  Simplicius,  aware  of  the  factious  temper  of 
his  flock,  had  applied  to  Basilius,  Praetorian  Prefect  under 
King  Odoacer,  not  to  allow  the  electoral  body  to  proceed 
to  the  choice  of  a  Pope  on  the  next  vacancy  unless  in  the 
presence  and  under  the  control  of  the  Prefect  himself.  But 
when  Simplicius  died,  the  electors  paid  no  attention  to  this 
provision,  and  even  went  so  far  as  to  give  no  notice  to  the 
civil  magistrate,  contrary  to  the  usual  custom.  Basilius 
hereupon  attended  the  electoral  assembly,  and  remonstrated 
against  its  conduct,  on  the  very  sufficient  ground  that  the 
far  from  unUkely  disturbances  which  might  accompany 
the  discussion  would  probably  spread  to  the  State  as 
well  as  to  the  Church,  and  that  it  was  consequently  the 
business   of  the  civil  authority  to   take   due   precautions 


CHAP.  VII.]    BREAKS    IN    l^HE    CHAIN    OF    PRESCklPTIOX.    267 

against  rioting  Nor  did  he  content  himself  witJi  this  re- 
monstrance :  for  it  seems  certain  that  to  his  representations 
was  due  the  remarkable  law  enacted  by  Odoacer,  interfering 
for  the  first  time  with  the  management  and  control  of 
Church  property,  which  had  till  then  been  left  absolutely 
in  the  hands  of  the  clergy.  It  seems,  however,  that  the 
diversion  of  these  funds  for  the  purposes  of  faction,  and  the 
consequent  stirring  up  of  public  trouble,  had  become  fre- 
quent and  dangerous ;  so  that  the  new  law  struck  vigor- 
ously at  the  abuse  by  prohibiting  all  alienations  of  any  kind 
of  Church  property,  declaring  all  sales  or  contracts  of  the 
sort  null  and  void,  and  the  alienated  property  recoverable 
by  the  foundation  to  which  it  belonged,  after  any  length  of 
adverse  possession.  An  anathema  (it  does  not  appear  on 
what  authority)  was  appended  to  the  edict,  which  was  re- 
ceived with  much  anger  by  those  at  whom  it  was  levelled, 
but  they  were  unable  to  make  any  effectual  resistance  so 
long  as  it  continued  in  force.^  The  object  of  Theodoric 
was  to  abolish  the  evils  of  canvassing  ;  and  when  the  Synod 
assembled  under  the  presidency  of  the  new  Pope,  it  con- 
sisted of  seventy-three  bishops,  sixty-seven  priests,  and 
seven  deacons.  The  following  canons,  proposed  by  the 
Pope,  were  enacted  :  (a)  Any  priest,  deacon,  or  clerk,  in 
the  lifetime  of  a  Pope,  and  without  his  assent,  canvassing 
for  the  Papacy,  making  any  promises,  endeavouring  to  ex- 
tort pledges,  or  joinimg  in  any  caucuses,  to  secure  an  elec- 
tion, should  be  deposed  and  excommunicated.  (^)  Any 
one  convicted  of  canvassing  for  the  Papacy  during  the 
Pope's  lifetime  should  be  anathematized,  (c)  If  the  Pope 
should  die  too  suddenly  to  allow  of  his  personally  making 
arrangements  for  the  choice  of  his  successor  (///  ^e  sui  elec- 
tiofie  succissoris,  ut  supra  placuit^  non  possit  ante  deccrnere)^ 
the  candidate  with  the  majority  of  suffrages,  if  not  disquali- 
fied by  canvassing,  should  be  consecrated,  {d)  Informers 
against  violations  of  these  canons,  even  if  accomplices, 
should  not  only  receive  a  free  pardon,  but  be  rewarded 

*  Baron.  Ann.  483,  x.-xv. 


268  THE    PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VM. 

besides.^  It  is  not  unworthy  of  remark  that  the  Anti-Pope 
Laurentius,  accepting  the  decision  of  Theodoric,  took  his 
seat  in  this  Synod,  and  withdrew  at  its  close  to  the  Bishopric 
of  Nocera ;  so  that  no  such  doubt  hangs  over  the  claim  of 
Symmachus  to  the  Papacy  as  over  that  of  Damasus  or 
Boniface  I. 

The  hostility  of  the  party  which  had  promoted  the 
election  of  Laurentius  was,  however,  not  appeased  by  his 
voluntary  cession,  and  in  the  year  500  the  Pope  was  im- 
peached before  King  Theodoric  for  various  crimes,  and 
notably  as  the  cause  of  the  violent  disorders  which  had  again 
broken  out  in  Rome.  Mention  has  been  made  in  a  former 
chapter  of  the  remarkable  precedent  set  when  a  mere  local 
Italian  Synod  was  compelled,  in  spite  of  its  reclamations, 
to  sit  in  judgment  on  the  Pope;^  but  there  are  some 
curious  details  which  merit  notice  here.  First,  the  Senator 
Festus  persuaded  the  king  to  repeat  the  precedent  set  by 
the  Emperor  Honorius  at  the  time  of  the  disputed  election 
on  the  death  of  Pope  Zosimus,^  and  to  appoint  an  Episcopal 
Vicar  as  temporary  administrator  of  the  See  of  Rome,  to 
the  supersession  of  the  Pope  till  he  had  been  formally 
tried  :  and  also  to  make  the  necessary  preparations  for  the 
trial  itself,  besides  performing  all  episcopal  offices  as  though 
the  See  were  vacant.  Peter,  Bishop  of  Altino,  was  accord- 
ingly nominated,  with  instructions,  however,  to  exhibit  all 
due  respect  to  the  Pope.  Instead  of  doing  so,  Peter,  on 
his  arrival  in  Rome,  at  once  suspended  Symmachus  from 
all  his  functions,  without  so  much  as  granting  him  an  inter- 
view, or  hearing  what  defence  he  had  to  make.  This 
misconduct  greatly  increased  the  disturbances  at  Rome, 
and  obliged  the  king  to  come  in  person  to  appease  the 
general  discontent.  It  was  then  that  Theodoric  convened  the 
Synod  of  115  Italian  Bishops  which  first  assembled  to  try 
the  Pope,  who,  in  fact,  personally  called  for  the  inquiry  as 


Bruns,  Cano7ies,  ii.  289.  ^  Chap.  III.  p.  109,  note. 

3  Baron.  Afin.'^ig,  xxxiii. 


CHAP.  VII.]    BREAKS    IN   THE   CHAIN   OF   PRESCRIPTION.    269 

the  only  effectual  way  of  clearing  himself.  Theodoric 
withdrew  to  Ravenna,  to  make  it  clear  that  he  did  not 
intend  to  overawe  the  Synod,  but  absolutely  refused  the 
Pope's  application  for  the  dismissal  of  Peter  of  Altino  from 
his  office  of  sequestrator  of  the  See,  and  for  his  own 
reinstatement  before  trial.  The  matter  was  not  pressed 
after  the  king's  refusal,  and  is  thus  a  very  weighty  piece  of 
evidence  as  to  the  degree  of  Papal  authority  at  this  date. 
Symmachus,  however,  took  advantage  of  a  riot,  in  which  he 
was  attacked  by  the  bravos  of  the  opposition  party,  to 
retract  his  consent  to  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Synod ;  so  its 
members  informed  the  king  that  the  Pope  had  refused  to 
comply  with  their  summons,  and  that  they  did  not  know 
how  to  act,  as  there  was  no  provision  in  ecclesiastical  law 
for  trying  a  Pope,  especially  before  the  Bishops  under  his 
own  direct  jurisdiction.^  The  king  told  them  to  decide  any 
way  they  chose,  provided  their  decision  should  make  for  the 
restoration  of  peace ;  and  they  availed  themselves  of  this 
leniency  to  get  rid  of  the  whole  difficulty  by  declaring  them- 
selves incompetent  to  decide  the  question  at  issue  at  all, 
further  than  by  saying  that  in  view  of  the  rank  and 
privileges  of  St.  Peter,  the  Pope  must  be  declared  free  from 
all  human  responsibility,  be  restored  to  all  his  functions 
and  honours,  and,  in  respect  of  the  charges  against  him,  be 
left  to  the  judgment  of  God  alone.-  This  was,  however, 
very  far  from  being  a  unanimous  decision.  It  emanated 
from  only  seventy-two  Bishops,  all  known  partisans  of  the 
Pope.  The  minority  of  forty-three  Bishpps  lodged  a  formal 
protest  against  the  acquittal  pronounced  by  what  they 
termed  the  "Synod  of  the  Incongruous  Acquittal"  {Con- 
tra Synodum  Absolutiotiis  Incongruce),  on  the  threefold 
ground  that  the  majority  consisted  of  persons  who  had 
come  with  a  predetermination  to  acquit  Symmachus,  what- 
ever the  evidence  might  be ;  that  his  accusers  had  never 
been  heard,  so  that  no  real  trial  had   taken  place  which 


•  Hardouin,  Cone.  ii.  974.  *  Ibid.  p.  970. 


270  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VII. 

could  justify  an  acquittal ;  and  that  the  Pope  having  four 
times  refused,  under  various  pretexts,  to  appear  before  his 
judges,  though  duly  cited,  merited  condemnation  on  that 
ground  alone,  according  to  the  usual  course  of  law.  Re- 
markable as  this  protest  is,  because  coming  from  a  body  of 
prelates  belonging  to  the  Roman  Patriarchate,  who  might 
naturally  be  expected  to  be  submissive  to  their  unquestion- 
able superior,  there  is  a  yet  more  singular  document  con- 
nected with  this  abortive  trial,  which  emanated  from  the 
Papal  party.  It  is  the  counter-allegation  put  forward  by 
Ennodius,  then  deacon  and  secretary  of  Symmachus,  and 
afterwards  Bishop  of  Pavia,  to  the  effect  that  a  Pope  can  be 
tried  only  by  his  own  consent,  and  that,  in  fact,  there 
never  could  be  any  sufficient  reason  for  indicting  him  with 
a  view  to  a  trial,  because  one  of  the  chief  privileges 
attached  to  the  Chair  of  Peter  is  that  oi  hereditary  innoce?ice; 
so  that  every  Pope  is,  in  virtue  of  his  office,  a  saint,  and  is 
either  already  pure  and  holy  at  the  time  of  his  election,  or 
becomes  so  by  reason  of  it.  This  bold  proposition,  revived 
some  centuries  later  by  Gregory  VII.,  was  far  from  passing 
unchallenged ;  but  it  was  read  before  a  Roman  Synod  in 
503,  and  embodied  by  it  in  its  Acts.^  The  motive  for 
holding  that  Synod  was  that  the  Churches  of  Gaul, 
thoroughly  subjugated  as  they  had  been  to  the  Papal 
Chair  by  the  Edict  of  Valentinian  III.,  were  startled  at  the 
news  that  the  Pope  was  to  be  put  on  his  trial,  and  sent  a 
remonstrance  to  the  Italian  Bishops  through  Avitus,  Arch- 
bishop of  Vienne,  declaring  their  opinion  to  be  that  the 
Pope  could  not  be  brought  to  trial  by  his  Bishops,  as  he 
was  head  and  chief  of  the  Church  Catholic,  and  they  his 
subjects  and  inferiors.^  Such  doctrine  was  far  too  accept- 
able and  useful  at  Rome  to  be  left  in  an  informal  shape, 
and  Symmachus  convened  a  Synod  of  218  Italian  Bishops, 
who,  besides  accepting  the  thesis  of  Ennodius,  further 
enacted  that  the  Pope,  as  supreme  judge  in  all  ecclesiastical 


Hardouin,  Cone.  ii.  pp.  983  ff.  ^  Ibid,  p   981. 


CHAP.  VII.]    BREAKS    IN    THE   CHAIN    OF   PRESCRIPTION.    271 

and  spirtual  causes,  was  responsible  to  God  alone,  and — 
as  a  kind  of  corollary — that  no  Bishop,  however  blame- 
worthy, could  be  called  to  account  by  his  own  flock,  and 
should  not  be  bound  to  make  any  answer,  even  to  a  synodal 
impeachment,  until  he  had  first  been  restored  to  all 
property,  dignity,  or  privileges  of  which  his  accusers  might 
have  deprived  him.  These  canons  were  enforced  by 
sentences  of  deposition  for  the  clergy  and  excommunication 
for  all  others.  In  the  previous  year,  502,  another  Roman 
Synod  had  professed  to  repeal  the  law  of  Odoacer,  already 
mentioned,  against  the  alienation  of  Church  property, 
though  immediately  re-enacting  it  in  almost  identical  terms, 
and  had  thus  added  a  virtual  claim  of  absolute  superiority 
over  the  State  in  all  the  temporal  accidents  of  the  Church 
to  the  far-reaching  spiritual  privileges  now  heaped,  so  far  as 
a  local  Synod  could  do  it,  upon  the  occupant  of  the 
Roman  Chair.  Thus,  although  there  is  abundant  evidence 
that  a  powerful  minority  regarded  all  this  as  an  unwarrant- 
able and  dangerous  innovation,  nevertheless  the  net  result 
of  the  troubles  under  Symmachus  was  a  great  increase  in 
the  prestige  of  the  Papacy. 

Meanwhile,  Eastern  Christianity  was  becoming  disinte- 
grated more  rapidly  than  that  of  the  West  was  crystallizing, 
and  the  prospect  of  an  accommodation  between  Rome  and 
Constantinople,  already  faint,  was  destroyed  by  an  open 
breach  between  Pope  Symmachus  and  the  Emperor  Anas- 
tatius,  in  which  each  charged  the  other  with  abetting  heresy 
(truly  enough  so  far  as  the  Emperor  was  concerned) ;  and 
the  interchange  of  violent  discourtesies — on  the  one  hand, 
inclusive  of  withholding  the  usual  letters  of  congratulation 
on  the  accession  of  a  new  Pope ;  on  the  other,  a  scarcely- 
veiled  sentence  of  excommunication  on  the  Emperor,  as 
virtually  involved  in  the  condemnation  of  Acacius — did 
much  to  embitter  the  relations  of  East  and  West,  but, 
singularly  enough,  in  so  doing  further  advanced  the  Papal 
cause.  The  reasons  are  as  follows.  Although  Symmachus 
was  an  object  of  distrust  and  suspicion  to  the  whole 
moderate  school  at  Rome,  and  has  never  been  cleared  of 


272  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VII. 

some  of  the  worst  charges  against  him,  notably  that  of 
selling  holy  orders,^  nevertheless  no  doubt  was  seriously 
entertained  of  his  adherence  to  the  doctrinal  decrees  of 
Ephesus  and  Chalcedon.  But  his  pontificate  synchronized 
with  a  remarkable  recrudescence  of  Eutychianism  in  the 
East,  actively  fostered  by  the  Emperor  Anastatius,  who 
showed  his  hand  first  by  sequestering  the  Patriarch  Euphe- 
mius,  a  man  of  high  character  for  devoutness  and  honesty, 
and  then  procuring  his  deposition  by  a  packed  Synod  ;  in 
which  he  also  caused  the  republication  of  the  Henoticon 
of  Zeno.  Macedonius,  the  Patriarch  appointed  in  the 
room  of  Euphemius,  proved  to  be  of  like  temper;  and, 
refusing  to  reject  the  Council  of  Chalcedon  at  the  Em- 
peror's bidding,  was  arrested  and  sent  into  exile.  And 
though  even  the  Emperor  failed  to  persuade  or  compel 
any  Synod  to  depose  a  man  so  highly  esteemed,  Timotheus, 
treasurer  of  the  Great  Church,  a  mere  Court  lackey,  was 
intruded  in  his  room.  His  first  act  was  to  renounce  com- 
munion with  the  Catholic  Patriarchs  of  Antioch  and  Jeru- 
salem, while  sending  letters  of  communion  to  the  Eutychian 
Patriarch  of  Alexandria  and  other  Bishops  of  that  party. 
This  precipitated  the  crisis ;  and  the  Catholics  of  Syria  and 
Palestine,  casting  about  for  help  in  their  peril,  turned  to 
Rome,  known  to  be  free  from  Monophysite  leanings,  and 
addressed  a  memorial  to  Pope  Symmachus,  imploring  his 
assistance,  having  good  reason  to  think  that  his  personal 
quarrel  with  the  Emperor  would  make  him 'all  the  readier 
in  supporting  his  own  co-religionists.  The  wording  of  this 
memorial  is  very  noteworthy,  as  showing,  on  the  one  hand, 
what  language  of  deference  was  thought  necessary  for  the 
propitiation  of  the  Pope,  and,  on  the  other,  what  saving 
clauses  are  interwoven,  in  order  not  to  make  any  such 
formal  acknowledgment  of  Papal  authority  as  might  be  in- 
conveniently pressed  at  some  future  time.  A  few  phrases 
will  serve  in  illustration.     First  comes  a  preamble,  in  which 


-  Hefele,  Cone,  xiii.  220, 


CHAP.  VII.]    BREAKS   IN    THE   CHAIN    OF   PRESCRIPTION.    273 

they  cite  the  parables  of  the  lost  sheep  and  the  lost 
drachma,  and  remark  that  far  greater  interests  are  now 
imperilled,  affecting  "  three-fourths  of  the  habitable 
world,"  though  purchased  with  the  precious  Blood  of 
the  Lamb,  "as  the  blessed  Prince  of  the  glorious 
Apostles,  whose  chair  Christ,  the  Good  Shepherd,  hath 
entrusted  to  your  Blessedness,  hath  taught."  Then, 
reminding  the  Pope  of  St.  Paul's  vision  calling  him  over 
to  Macedonia,  they  ask  him  to  hasten  in  like  manner, 
as  an  affectionate  father,  to  his  sons,  perishing  in  the  gain- 
saying of  Acacius,  and  deliver  them — 

"  Since  it  is  not  the  power  of  binding  only  which  has  been  given 
you,  but  also  that  of  loosing  those  long  bound,  after  the  pattern  of 
your  master.  .  .  .  For  you  are  not  ignorant  of  Satan's  craft,  since 
you  are  daily  taught  by  your  holy  teacher  Peter  to  feed  the  flock  of 
Christ  throughout  the  whole  world,  committed  to  you  not  to  be  con- 
strained by  force,  but  voluntarily  ;  you  who  with  the  most  learned 
Paul  cry  to  us  your  inferiors  {subjectis)  and  say  :  *  Not  for  that  we  have 
dominion  over  your  faith,  but  are  helpers  of  your  joy.'  " 

Next,  defending  themselves  from  the  charge  of  heresy, 
and  explaining  the  difficulties  of  their  position,  which  made 
some  intercourse  with  heretics  inevitable,  they  claim  his 
help  as  something  which  he  is  bound  to  give,  not  only  on 
the  general  ground  that  only  a  hireling,  and  no  true 
shepherd,  would  abandon  sheep  thus  exposed  to  the  wolf^ 
but  specially  that  he  owed  a  debt  of  gratitude  to  the  East, 
whence  his  own  teachers,  Peter  and  Paul,  had  been 
divinely  sent.  Then  they  say  that  if  their  calamity  had 
been  less  serious,  they  would  have  come  in  person,  instead 
of  merely  sending  a  letter.  "  We  would  have  hastened  to 
our  spiritual  physician  that  we  might  venerate  (adoraremus) 
the  passions  of  those  good  physicians,  that  is,  Christ's 
glorious  disciples,  your  teachers,  and  your  own  holy  foot- 
steps :  that  we  might  receive  medicine  for  gainsaying,  and 
loosing  of  bonds,  and  remission  of  sins  from  your  holy 
mouth."  A  long  profession  of  faith,  in  accordance  with 
the  decrees  of   Chalcedon,   ends  this  dispirited  appeal, 


274  'i'HE    PETRINE    CLAIMS  [CHAP.  VII. 

markedly  unlike  any  earlier  document  we  possess. ^  No 
record  has  been  preserved  of  the  Pope's  reply,  but  his 
general  policy  in  the  East  was  that  of  a  rigid  exaction  of 
the  hardest  terms  of  communion,  so  that  it  may  fairly  be 
assumed  that  the  Oriental  Bishops  took  but  little  by  their 
motion.  A  revolution  of  an  unexpected  nature  did  far 
more,  however,  for  the  Papal  claims  than  even  the  sub- 
missiveness  of  the  Eastern  hierarchy.  The  Emperor, 
pushing  his  support  of  Eutychianism  still  further,  deposed 
Flavian  of  Antioch,  and  intruded  the  heresiarch  Severus  in 
his  place,  speedily  afterwards  depriving  Elias  of  Jerusalem 
also.  The  Catholic  remnant  in  the  East  seemed  about  to 
be  crushed  in  a  hopeless  struggle  against  the  Court,  when 
Vitalian,  military  governor  of  Maesia  and  Dardania,  in  the 
north  of  that  great  province  of  Eastern  lUyricum  which  had 
always  had  close  relations  with  Rome,  raised  the  standard 
of  revolt  in  the  first  of  the  religious  wars  which  were  to 
prove  such  a  curse  to  Christendom,  and  marched  upon 
Constantinople  at  the  head  of  a  powerful  army  before  the 
Emperor  had  time  to  prepare  for  defence.  Alarmed  at  the 
havoc  already  wrought  by  the  invaders,  Anastatius  hastened 
to  submit  to  the  demands  of  Vitalian,  which  (undoubtedly 
suggested  from  Rome)  were  the  recall  of  Macedonius  and 
Flavian  to  their  Sees,  the  restoration  of  all  the  deprived 
anti-Eutychian  bishops,  public  confession  of  the  Creed  of 
Chalcedon,  and  the  convocation  of  an  GEcumenical  Council, 
to  which  the  Pope  was  to  be  specially  invited,  to  inquire 
into  the  legality  of  the  imperial  decrees  against  the 
Catholics. 2  Just  at  this  crisis  Pope  Symmachus  died,  and 
was  succeeded  in  the  Papal  Chair  by  Hormisda ;  and  little 
as  the  Emperor  was  inclined  to  fulfil  his  engagements, 
once  the  troops  of  Vitalian  had  withdrawn,  he  was  obliged 
to  open  negotiations  with  the  new  Pope  in  order  to  keep 


'  Baron.  An}t.  512,  xlviii.-lxii.  Baronius  characteristically  draws 
the  conclusion  that  kissing  the  Pope's  feet  was  at  this  time  the  usual 
mark  of  respect  paid  by  bishops  admitted  to  an  audience  at  Rome. 

2  Ibid.  514,  xl.  xli. 


CHAP.  Vll.]    IJREAKS    IN    THE    CHAIN    Ot    PRESCRl  ITION.    275 

up  appearances.  The  letter,  addressed  "  to  the  most  holy 
and  most  religious  Archbishop  and  Patriarch  Hormisda," 
was  despatched  to  Rome  in  January,  515,  and  the  envoy 
who  bore  it  also  carried  letters  to  the  Pope  from  Vitalian 
(now  lost),  and  from  Dorotheus  of  Thessalonica,  the  latter 
of  whom  besought  the  Pope  not  to  lose  such  an  opportunity 
of  healing  the  divisions  of  the  Church.  The  Emperor's 
missive  was  far  from  cordial  or  conciliatory.  He  lays  the 
blame  of  the  cessation  of  intercourse  between  himself  and 
Rome  on  the  "  stiffness "  {duritia)  of  the  late  Pope,  and 
curtly  giving  notice  of  his  design  to  assemble  a  Council, 
invites  Hormisda  to  attend  in  the  character  of  a  "mediator."^ 
Dorotheus  must  have  wounded  Papal  susceptibilities  nearly 
as  much  by  the  address  of  his  letter,  wherein  he  styles 
Hormisda  his  "  fellow-minister,"  and  by  at  least  implying, 
amidst  deep  professions  of  respect  for  the  Chair  of  St.  Peter, 
that  Symmachus  had  been  a  mere  intruder,  and  that  only 
the  regularity  of  the  late  election  had  availed  to  end  the 
schism  in  the  Roman  Church  itself. - 

Hormisda  was  far  from  anxious  to  meet  these  advances, 
such  as  they  were,  and  began  by  declining  to  give  a  definite 
answer  till  he  should  have  more  information,  and  with 
repeating  the  objection  raised  long  before  by  Leo  the  Great, 
that  there  was  no  precedent  for  the  presence  of  the  Roman 
Pontiff  at  any  Council  outside  Italy.  But  pressure  from 
King  Theodoric  obliged  him  to  give  way  in  some  degree, 
and  on  receipt  of  another  letter  from  the  Emperor,  inviting 
him  to  a  Council  to  be  held  at  Heraclea,  in  Thrace,  on 
July  15  that  same  year,  he  consented  to  send  legates  in  his 
stead,  not,  however,  to  Heraclea  itself,  but  to  Constanti- 
nople. These  legates  were  the  Ultramontane  Ennodius  of 
Pavia,  already  named,  Fortunatus  of  Todi,  the  priest 
Venantius,  Vitalis,  a  deacon,  and  Hilarus,  a  notary.  The 
instructions  of  the  Pope  to  these  envoys  were  very  full,  and 
aimed  far  more   at   increasing   the    prestige   of    his   Sec 


*  Baron.  Ann.  515,  iv.  v.  *  Ibid,  viii.-xi. 

T  2 


276  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VII. 

amongst  the  Easterns  than  at  healing  the  divisions  of 
Christendom.  He  bids  them  to  accept  any  offer  of  lodging 
made  them  by  the  Greek  Bishops,  but  not  to  eat  or  drink 
with  them,  nor  even  receive  gifts  of  provisions  from 
them,  or  anything  except  means  of  transit,  until  after 
the  public  act  of  joint  communion.  They  are  provided 
with  answers  beforehand  to  almost  every  proposal  or 
question  likely  to  come  from  the  Emperor ;  they  are  told 
not  to  communicate  with  him  at  the  altar  till  he  has  publicly 
declared  that  his  doctrine  is  not  only  that  of  Chalcedon  and 
the  Tome  of  St.  Leo,  but  that  he  accepts  all  the  ordinances 
and  teachings  of  the  Holy  See  ;  on  which  condition  they 
may  hold  out  hopes  of  the  Pope's  attendance  at  the  coming 
Council.  If  any  petitions  are  lodged  against  Bishops  for 
having  rejected  the  Council  of  Chalcedon  and  the  Tome,  they 
are  to  receive  them,  but  to  reserve  the  hearing  of  the  cause 
for  the  judgment  of  the  Apostolic  See,  "  that  you  may  give 
hopes  of  a  hearing,  and  yet  our  right  of  deciding  the  matter 
may  be  reserved."  They  are  to  refuse  all  intercourse  with 
the  Patriarch  Timothy,  and  are  particularly  instructed,  every 
time  they  have  occasion  to  name  the  Pope  to  the  Emperor, 
to  speak  of  him  as  "  your  Father,"  giving  his  orders  to  a 
son  bound  to  obedience.^  To  this  document,  of  which 
only  a  few  of  the  chief  clauses  are  here  cited,  was  added  a 
schedule  of  the  terms  of  peace  to  be  imposed  on  the 
Emperor,  now  humbled  by  the  sense  of  the  insecurity  of  his 
throne  because  of  the  militant  and  insurgent  temper  of  his 
Catholic  subjects.  These  terms  are  as  follows  : — i.  The 
Emperor  is  to  send  a  circular  letter  to  all  Bishops,  declaring 
his  acceptance  of  the  Council  of  Chalcedon  and  of  the 
Tome  of  St.  Leo.  2.  The  Fathers  of  the  Council  are  to 
sign  a  like  declaration,  and  to  anathematize,  not  only 
Nestorius  and  Eutyches,  with  their  followers,  but  also 
Acacius.  3.  All  persons  exiled  for  any  ecclesiastical  reason 
are  to   be  referred   to  the  hearing  of  the  Apostolic  See, 


Baron.  Anti.  515,  xxiv.-xxxv. 


CHAP.  VII.]    BREAKS    IN   THE    CHAIN    OF    PRESCRIPTION.    277 

which  is  to  have  full  powers  of  inquiry  and  decision. 
4.  All  persons  expelled  or  exiled,  who  are  known  to  have 
remained  in  communion  with  the  Roman  See,  are  to  be  at 
once  restored  as  a  matter  of  right.  5.  All  Bishops  charged 
with  the  persecution  of  Catholics  are  to  be  reserved  for  the 
judgment  of  the  Apostolic  See.^  The  legates  were  entrusted 
at  the  same  time  with  a  letter  from  Hormisda  to  the 
Emperor,  in  which  he  says  that  though  there  is  no  pre- 
cedent for  a  Pope  complying  with  such  an  invitation  to  a 
Council  as  he  had  received,  he  is  nevertheless  not  unwilling 
to  take  the  matter  into  consideration,  provided  a  pledge 
be  given  beforehand  that  the  Council  will  decide  in  one 
specified  way  and  no  other. - 

Anastatius,  placed  as  he  was  between  two  fires,  was 
ready  to  accept  nearly  all  of  these  exorbitant  demands,  but 
there  was  one  point  of  more  serious  importance  to  him 
than  the  others,  on  which  he  felt  obliged  to  make  a  stand, 
lest  he  should  fatally  incense  the  people  of  Constantinople. 
That  point  was  the  erasure  of  the  name  of  Acacius  from 
the  diptychs,  and  the  recognition  of  the  validity  of  the 
Papal  sentence  against  him.  The  legates  pleaded  their 
precise  instructions,  of  which  this  was  in  truth  the  principal 
item,  as  it  would  be  a  fatal  blow  to  the  privileges  of 
Constantinople ;  and  the  negotiations  broke  off,  so  far  as 
they  were  concerned.  But  the  Emperor  addressed  another 
letter  to  the  Pope  for  them  to  transmit,  wherein,  after  pro- 
fessing his  acceptance  of  the  doctrine  of  Chalcedon,  he 
declares  that  he  could  not  venture  on  the  erasure  of  Acacius 
from  the  diptychs  on  his  own  responsibility  without  great 
risk  of  tumult  and  bloodshed,  and  that,  for  his  own  part,  he 
did  not  think  it  right  to  drive  living  men  out  of  the  Church 
on  account  of  dead  ones ;  but  that  he  was  ready  to  leave 
this  question  to  the  Council  for  settlement.*^  He  followed 
up  this  letter  with  an  embassy  in  the  next  year,  sending  two 


*  Raron.  Ann.    xxxvi.-xxxviii. 
*  /di(/.  515,  xix.-xxiii.  »  //V/V/.  516,  viii.-xi. 


278  THE    PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VII. 

laymen  of  high  rank,  Theopompus,  Count  of  the  Domestics, 
and  Severianus,  Count  of  the  Imperial  Consistory,  with 
letters  to  the  Pope  and  to  the  Roman  Senate,  in  which  he 
repeated  his  desire  for  peace,  and  asked  that  the  question 
of  Acacius  might  at  least  be  postponed  for  the  Council  to 
decide.  But  his  overtures  were  rejected  with  contumely  by 
the  Pope,  partly,  it  would  seem,  on  the  pretext  of  the  lay 
character  of  the  ambassadors  ;  and  the  original  demands 
were  repeated  in  all  their  stringency.  But  in  the  mean- 
while, the  Emperor's  position  had  sensibly  improved  at 
home,  by  reason  of  the  popularity  he  gained  through 
standing  firm  in  the  matter  of  Acacius,  and  he  had  besides 
re-estabUshed  his  authority  over  Maesia  and  Dardania,  and 
had  superseded  Vitalian  himself,  whose  secret  understanding 
with  the  Pope  had  been  scarcely  doubtful.  Accordingly, 
he  saw  no  use  in  prosecuting  the  scheme  of  a  Council,  but 
dismissed  the  bishops  already  assembled  at  Heraclea,  and 
countermanded  such  as  were  still  on  their  way ;  whereupon 
the  Roman  legates  withdrew  from  Constantinople. 

The  Pope  was  much  blamed  by  all  save  his  own  im- 
mediate partisans  for  having  thus  made  the  hopes  of 
reconciliation  abortive,  but  a  tactical  error  of  the  Emperor's 
gave  him  an  excuse  for  making  a  fresh  attempt  on  the 
liberties  of  the  Eastern  Churches.  Anastatius  determined 
to  revenge  himself  on  those  Bishops  of  lUyricum  who  had 
abetted  Vitalian's  rising,  and  arrested  four  of  them, 
including  Alcyson  of  Nicopolis,  Metropolitan  of  Epirus, 
who  died  in  custody.  His  comprovincials  immediately 
elected  as  his  successor  one  John,  an  ardent  partisan  of 
Rome,  who  at  once  despatched  a  letter  to  the  Pope, 
announcing  his  consecration,  and  declaring  his  adherence 
to  all  Papal  teachings,  including  the  condemnation  of 
Acacius.  A  synodal  letter  from  his  comprovincials  accom- 
panied this  private  one,  and  Hormisda  promptly  replied, 
commending  their  zeal,  warning  them  against  any  inter- 
course with  heretics,  and  calling  on  them  to  redeem  their 
professions  of  devotion  to  Rome  by  signing  the  document 
known  as  the  Formulary  of  Hormisda,  which  shall  be  given 


CHAP.  VII.]    BREAKS    IN    THE   CHAIN    OF   PRESCRIFIION.    279 

a  little  later.  And  as  Dorotheus  of  Thessalonica,  Eparch  of 
Eastern  Illyricum,  refused  to  break  off  communion  with 
Constantinople,  the  Pope  took  a  step  in  advance  of  any 
aggression  on  local  rights  yet  essayed  by  Rome,  by  disre- 
garding his  official  rank  as  Papal  Vicar  for  that  province, 
assuming  in  his  stead  direct  metropolitical  jurisdiction 
within  its  limits,  ordaining  Bishops  to  all  vacant  sees,  and 
finally  proceeding  to  excommunicate  Dorotheus  himself, 
exempting  all  his  comprovincials  from  his  authority,  and 
even  refusing  them  leave  to  hold  official  intercourse  with 
him  as  their  Primate,  under  pain  of  being  themselves 
excommunicated;^  But  while  thus  punishing  one  whose 
sole  offence  had  been  tardiness  in  preferring  Papal  to 
Imperial  commands,  Hormisda  re-opened  negotiations  with 
Anastatius,  sending  Ennodius  of  Pavia  and  Peregrinus  of 
Misenum  as  legates  in  April,  5 1 7,  to  Constantinople,  osten- 
sibly with  public  letters  only,  addressed  to  the  Emperor,  the 
Patriarch,  and  the  Bishops,  with  exhortations  to  orthodoxy 
and  unity  ;  but  also  with  more  private  instructions  to  stir  up 
cabals  in  the  Roman  interest  at  Constantinople,  and  to  take 
measures  in  concert  with  the  enemies  of  the  Government, 
in  case  the  Papal  demands  were  not  acceded  to.  The 
Court,  which  had  private  information  throughout,  allowed 
the  legates  to  do  as  they  pleased,  and  commit  themselves 
fully  to  constructive  treason,  but  then  suddenly  arrested 
and  deported  them,  while  the  Emperor  terminated  the 
abortive  negotiations  in  a  far  from  undignified  letter  to  the 
Pope,  contrasting  his  arrogant  and  implacable  temper  with 
the  example  of  the  Saviour,  and  ending  with  the  significant 
words  :  "  We  can  bear  with  being  insulted  and  made  of  no 
account ;  we  cannot  bear  to  receive  orders."  ^ 

It  seemed  as  if  the  Papal  game  had  been  played  out  in 
the  East,  but  a  fresh  chance  was  given  by  the  impolitic 
cruelties  of  Severus  of  Antioch,  an  anti-Catholic  zealot,  who 


'  Baron.  ^««.  516,  xliv.-xlvi. 

'  Ibid.  Ann.  516,  xlix.    **Injuriari  et  annuUari  sustinefw'  possumus, 
juberi  non  possumus." 


28o  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VII. 

fired  the  Catholic  monasteries,  and  slaughtered  as  many  as 
three  hundred  and  fifty  monks  on  a  single  occasion.  An 
appeal  to  the  Emperor  against  Severus,  his  own  nominee, 
proved  to  be  in  vain,  and  accordingly  the  sufferers  addressed 
themselves  to  the  Pope  and  the  Western  Bishops  in  general 
for  help  and  redress,  undertaking  on  their  part  to  anathe- 
matize all  who  had  been  condemned  by  the  Apostolic  See.^ 
This  document  was  signed  by  twenty-five  Archimandrites, 
and  one  hundred  and  seventy  priests  and  deacons.  Hor- 
misda,  in  his  reply,  tells  them  that  all  their  sufferings  are 
due  to  their  having  left  the  one  true  shepherd — namely, 
himself — but  that  affliction  has  brought  them  back  to  the 
degrees  and  mandates  of  the  Apostolic  See,  though  some- 
what tardily,  and  that  if  they  persevere  in  that  course,  and 
anathematize  all  whom  Rome  has  condemned,  he  will  ex- 
tend his  favour  to  them,  and  notably  if  they  resist  all 
commands  of  the  secular  authority  in  spiritual  concerns,  as 
the  Temple  priesthood  did  King  Uzziah.^ 

The  death  of  Anastatius  in  518,  and  the  accession  of 
Justin  I.,  an  orthodox  sovereign,  changed  the  situation  at 
Constantinople  with  much  rapidity.  The  Patriarch  and  all 
the  Court-prelates  hastened  to  abjure  Eutychianism,  to 
revive  the  decrees  of  Chalcedon,  and  to  restore  the  names 
of  Euphemius,  Macedonius,  and  Leo  the  Great  to  the 
diptychs.  But  although  the  doctrinal  gulf  between  Rome 
and  Constantinople  was  thus  narrowed,  the  proceedings 
were  not  such  as  gave  satisfaction  to  the  former,  for  the 
Synod  which  assembled  to  ratify  the  change  took  no  ac- 
count whatever  of  Papal  acts  in  its  proceedings,  and  though 
restoring  the  name  of  Leo  to  the  diptychs,  placed  it  below 
those  of  Euphemius  and  Macedonius,  both  of  whom  had 
died  excommunicated  by  the  Pope  for  refusing  to  admit 
the  validity  of  the  sentence  on  Acacius.  But  the  new 
Emperor  was  anxious  to  make  peace  with  Rome,  and  Rome 
cared   little  for  any  restoration  of  orthodox  teaching  which 


Baron.  Ann.  liv.-lviii.  2  /^/^.  ^ig^  iii.-xii. 


CHAP.  VII.]    BREAKS    IN    THE    CHAIN    OF    PRESCRIPTION.    28 1 

did  not  include  submission  to  her  demands.  Accordingly, 
when  the  Patriarch  sent  formal  notice  to  the  Pope  of  the 
Synod  which  had  just  been  held,  and  of  the  restoration  of 
his  name,  as  well  as  that  of  his  predecessor  Leo,  to  the 
Constantinopolitan  diptychs,  asking  him  to  send  envoys  to 
conclude  the  peace  now  begun,  the  Emperor  sent  Count 
Gratus  with  a  letter  to  the  same  effect,  and,  what  is  more 
important,  that  officer  bore  also  a  private  letter  to  the  Pope 
from  the  Emperor's  nephew,  the  famous  Justinian,  broadly 
hinting  that  the  question  of  Acacius  was  to  be  decided 
in  the  Pope's  sense,  and  asking  him  to  come  in  person  to 
Constantinople,  or  at  least  to  send  legates  clothed  with 
plenipotentiary  powers,  on  that  understanding.^  A  victory 
for  the  Papal  Chair  was  thus  a  foregone  conclusion,  nor 
was  any  serious  resistance  to  be  expected  from  the  Patriarch 
John,  a  man  of  facile  and  yielding  temper.  The  Pope  saw 
his  advantage,  and  was  far  from  cordial  or  encouraging  in 
his  reply.  To  the  Emperor  he  briefly  says  that  it  is  high 
time  the  Greek  Bishops  came  to  a  better  mind,  and  that 
he  will  send  directions  to  them  as  to  their  conduct  for  the 
future,  as  also  a  Formulary  to  sign,  on  their  reception  of 
which  his  own  policy  will  depend.  To  the  Patriarch  he  is 
more  explicit,  and  even  less  friendly ;  asking  him  how  he 
can  reconcile  the  discrepancy  of  accepting  the  decrees  of 
Chalcedon,  and  yet  continuing  to  uphold  Acacius ;  and 
alleging  that  the  necessary  corollary  of  his  having  at  last 
embraced  the  faith  of  blessed  Peter  is  that  he  is  bound  to 
receive  also  all  the  judgments  of  the  Apostolic  See  without 
any  hesitation,  and  to  set  a  good  example  to  all  the  Oriental 
Bishops  by  being  the  first  to  sign  the  Formulary.^ 

The  Pope  then  prepared  to  send  a  legation  to  the  East, 
consisting  of  the  Bishops  Germanus  and  John,  Blandus,  a 
presbyter,  and  Felix  and  Dioscorus,  deacons.  They  were 
given  the  most  precise  instructions  not  to  hold  communion. 


'  Baron.  Ann.  518,  Ixxi.-lxxxi.     "De  nomine  tantummodo  Acacii 
vestrae  Beatitudinis  convenit  audire  consensum." 
•  Ibid.  Ixxviii.-!xxxi. 


282  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VII. 

nor  even  to  eat,  with  any  one  who  did  not  first  sign  the  For- 
mulary; to  insist  on  the  erasure  from  the  diptychs,  not  only 
of  the  name  of  Acacius,  but  of  his  successors,  and  that  if  it 
should  be  argued  that  two  of  these,  Euphemius  and  Mace- 
donius,  were  not  only  of  unquestionable  orthodoxy,  but  had 
even  suffered  as  confessors  for  the  faith  of  Chalcedon,  they 
were  to  reply  that  they  had  no  authority  to  vary  one  tittle 
from  the  text  of  the  Formulary ;  and  that  if  the  Patriarch 
gave  way  on  these  points,  then  they  were  to  require  him  to 
send  a  circular  letter  to  all  the  bishops  within  his  jurisdiction, 
urging  them  to  follow  his  example.^  The  legates  were  also 
entrusted  with  a  large  number  of  letters  to  high  civil  per- 
sonages, both  men  and  women,  urging  them  to  do  all  in  their 
power  to  bring  about  the  desired  result.  The  progress  of  the 
legates  was  almost  a  triumphal  march  through  the  cities 
they  traversed  on  their  way,  and  they  procured  signatures 
without  difficulty  to  the  Formulary,  thereupon  admitting  the 
signatories  to  the  Roman  communion.  At  Constantinople 
itself  they  were  received  with  high  honours,  and  the  Emperor 
desired  them  to  hold  a  preliminary  conference  with  the 
Patriarch,  to  settle  the  terms  of  union  with  him.  They  re- 
plied that  the  terms  were  already  settled  by  the  Pope,  and 
that  they  were  not  empowered  to  alter  them  in  any  respect ; 
and,  in  fact,  the  Patriarch  made  no  difficulty  as  to  the  erasure 
of  the  name  of  Acacius,  which  had  been  the  one  point 
insisted  on  by  the  predecessors  of  Hormisda.  But  when 
the  further  demand  was  pressed  that  he  should  also  anathe- 
matize his  own  orthodox  predecessors,  Euphemius  and 
Macedonius,  who  had  been  all  but  martyrs  for  the  decrees 
of  Chalcedon,  and  whose  sole  offence  had  been  the  non- 
recognition  of  an  uncanonical  Papal  judgment,  John  dis- 
played unexpected  firmness^  and  protested  against  the  clause, 
as  also  against  the  far-reaching  claims  of  jurisdiction  with 
which  it  was  accompanied,  as  making  the  Pope  master  of 
Christendom,  and  communion  with  him  the  one  requisite  for 


Baron.  Ann.  519,  iii.-vii. 


CHAP.  VII.]    BREAKS    IN    THE    CHAIN    OF    PRESCRIPTION.    283 

salvation.  The  legates,  however,  would  abate  nothing,  and 
the  Emperor,  whose  own  mind  was  made  up  for  peace  at 
any  price,  and  who,  as  a  grossly  illiterate  man,  unable  even 
to  read  or  write,  was  quite  incapable  of  estimating  justly  the 
principles  at  stake,  first  had  the  civil  sanction  of  the  Senate 
given  to  the  Formulary,  and  then  proceeded  to  extort  the 
Patriarch's  signature.  He  still  held  out,  asking  that,  instead 
of  signing  the  Formulary  itself,  he  might  be  allowed  to 
draft  a  letter  of  his  own  to  the  Pope  to  the  same  general 
effect,  but  varied  in  wording,  to  avoid  the  difficulties  pre- 
sented by  a  document  drawn  up  in  the  Roman  Chancery. 
There  was  a  long  discussion  over  this  proposal,  and  a  com- 
promise was  at  last  agreed  on,  that  the  Patriarch  might 
prefix  a  letter  to  his  signature,  but  was  to  sign  absolutely. 
Accordingly,  John,  addressing  Hormisda  in  the  traditional 
form  as  his  "  brother  and  fellow-minister,"  astutely  inserted 
two  clauses  in  his  letter  which  eff"ectually  barred  the  possi- 
bility of  basing  any  future  claims  over  Constantinople  on 
the  fact  of  his  signature.     The  first  of  these  runs  thus  : — 

"  I  hold  that  the  most  holy  Churches  of  God — that  is,  yours  of  Old 
Rome  and  this  of  New  Rome — are  one ;  I  define  that  it,  the  See  of 
blessed  Peter,  and  this,  the  seat  of  Imperial  Government,  are  one." 

The  second  clause  went  yet  further,  by  implicitly  reasserting 
Canon  XXVIII.  of  Chalcedon,  in  these  terms: — 

•*  I  assent  to  all  the  Acts  of  those  four  Councils,  Nicsea,  Constan- 
tinople, Ephesus,  and  Chalcedon,  touching  the  confirmation  of  the 
Faith  atid  the  constitution  of  the  Church,  and  I  suffer  no  disturbance  of 
their  wise  decisions,  for  I  know  that  such  as  attempt  to  interfere  with  a 
single  tittle  of  their  decrees  have  fallen  away  from  the  Holy  Catholic 
and  Apostolic  Church  of  God."  ' 

At  a  Synod  held  in  presence  of  the  Roman  legates,  the 
Formulary  was  then  accepted  by  the  Emperor,  his  Court, 
the  Patriarch  and  the  clergy,  and  the  names  of  Acacius, 
Fravitta,  Euphemius,  and  Macedonius,  as  well  as  those  of 


Baron.  Ann.  519,  xlviii. 


284  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VII. 

the  Emperors  Zeno  and  Anastatius,  were  struck  out  of  the 
diptychs  ;  whereupon  the  legates  declared  the  thirty-five 
years'  schism  at  an  end,  and  the  Churches  re-united  ;  and 
that  on  the  sole  terms  which  Rome  had  demanded  ft-om 
the  beginning — those  of  simple  submission  to  her  demands. 
It  is  now  time  to  give  the  text  of  this  remarkable  docu- 
ment in  full,  as  the  best  comment  on  the  preceding  narra- 
tion. 

"  The  chief  means  of  salvation  is  to  keep  the  rule  of  the  right  faith, 
and  to  depart  in  no  wise  from  the  decrees  of  the  Fathers.  And  foras- 
much as  the  words  of  Our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  cannot  be  set  aside  when 
He  said,  '  Thou  art  Peter,'  &c.,  these  words  are  proved  true  by  their 
results,  since  religion  has  always  been  preserved  unspotted  in  the 
Apostolic  See.  Therefore,  desiring  not  to  be  separated  from  its  faith 
and  hope,  and  following  the  decrees  of  the  Fathers  in  all  respects,  we 
anathematize  all  heretics,  especially  the  heretic  Nestorius,  formerly 
Bishop  of  the  city  of  Constantinople,  condemned  in  the  Council  of 
Ephesus  by  Celestine,  Pope  of  the  city  of  Rome,  and  by  St.  Cyril, 
Bishop  of  the  city  of  Alexandria.  Together  with  them  anathematizing 
Eutyches  and  Dioscorus  of  Alexandria,  condemned  in  the  holy  Council 
of  Chalcedon,  which  we  follow  and  embrace.  Uniting  with  these  the 
parricide  ^  Timothy,  surnamed  ^lurus,  and  his  disciple  and  follower, 
Peter  or  Acacius,  who  abode  in  the  fellowship  of  their  communion, 
because,  since  he  mixed  himself  up  with  their  communion,  he  merited 
a  like  sentence  of  condemnation  with  them.  Likewise  condemning 
Peter  of  Antioch,  with  his  followers  and  those  of  the  aforenamed. 
Wherefore  we  receive  and  approve  all  the  letters  of  Pope  Leo,  which 
he  wrote  concerning  the  Christian  religion.  Whence,  as  we  have  said 
before,  following  the  Apostolic  See  in  all  respects,  and  teaching  all  its 
decrees,  I  hope  that  I  may  merit  to  be  in  the  one  communion  with 
you,  that  which  the  Apostolic  See  maintains,  wherein  is  the  whole  and 
perfect  steadfastness  of  the  Christian  religion  ;  promising  further  that 
the  names  of  such  as  are  separated  from  the  communion  of  the  Catholic 
Church — that  is,  who  do  not  agree  in  all  respects  with  the  Apostolic 
See — are  not  to  be  recited  during  the  Holy  Mysteries.  I  have  sub- 
scribed this  my  profession  with  my  own  hand,  and  have  presented  it 
to  thee,  Hormisda,  the  holy  and  venerable  Pope  of  Old  Rome." 

Justin  was  not  content  with  procuring  the  submission  of 
the  capital  to  the  new  act  of   union,  but  proceeded   to 


*  As  an  accomplice  in  the  murder  of  his  predecessor,  the  Patriarch 
St.  Proterius. 


CHAP.  VII.]    BREAKS    IN   THE   CHAIN    OF    PRESCRIPTION.    285 

force  it  on  the  East  in  general,  with  but  little  resistance 
anywhere,  save  from  Dorotheus  of  Thessalonica,  who  had 
reason  to  know  more  of  the  aims  and  temper  of  Rome 
than  most  of  the  Oriental  prelates,  and  who  went  so  far  as 
to  snatch  the  Formulary  out  of  the  hands  of  the  legate 
John,  who  had  been  specially  despatched  to  him,  and  to 
tear  it  up  publicly  ;  an  act  at  once  followed  by  a  riot,  in 
which  the  legate  nearly  lost  his  life.  The  Pope  demanded 
satisfaction,  and  that  Dorotheus  should  be  sent  to  be  tried 
at  Rome ;  but  the  Emperor  contented  himself  with  trying 
him  at  Constantinople,  and  suffered  him,  after  a  mere 
nominal  penalty,  to  return  to  his  see,  on  condition  of  his 
sending  a  formal  legation  of  apology  to  Rome,  which  he 
did  in  520,  but  without  making  any  real  concessions,  and 
throwing  all  the  blame  on  the  legate — an  excuse  with 
which  the  Pope  was  forced  to  content  himself. 

At  first  sight  it  does  not  seem  at  all  clear  why  the 
Emperor  Justin  should  have  exerted  himself  so  actively 
to  bring  about  the  humiliation  of  the  great  communion 
of  which  he  was  the  natural  protector ;  though  it  is  easy 
enough  to  understand  the  eagerness  of  the  lately  perse- 
cuted Eastern  Catholics  to  obtain,  at  the  price  of  what 
they  never  intended  as  practical  concessions,  the  support 
of  the  orthodox  and  powerful  Church  of  Rome  against 
any  fresh  violence  from  the  Eutychian  party.  But  it  is 
ea.sy  to  come  at  the  facts  by  looking  a  little  forward  into 
the  history  of  Italy.  Although  King  Theodoric  was  sole 
master  of  that  country,  and  the  Pope's  position  as  his 
subject  made  that  dignitary  in  a  sense  independent  of  the 
Emperor,  and  able  to  treat  with  him  from  a  level  impossible 
had  he  been  his  born  subject  instead ;  yet  in  the  theory  of 
the  Byzantine  Court  the  Italian  sovereign  was  a  mere 
removable  viceroy  of  the  Emperor,  true  monarch  of  the 
whole  Roman  dominion.  And  as  Theodoric  was  an 
.\rian  in  creed,  and  insisted  on  full  toleration  of  his  co- 
religionists, his  sway  was  extremely  distasteful  to  the 
Catholic  zealots,  whose  centre  of  operations  was  at  Rome  ; 
and  there  is  sufficient  proof  that  the  bribe  held  out  to  the 


286  THE    PEIRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VII. 

Emperor  Justin  was  that  of  material  aid  from  the  Pope  in 
any  attempt  to  recover  the  crown  of  Italy,  provided  he  in 
turn  would  assist  the  Papal  designs  against  the  liber- 
ties of  the  Eastern  Churches.  But,  willing  as  the  Emperor 
had  been  to  fulfil  his  part  of  the  bargain,  Hormisda  was 
to  learn  the  evil  of  having  grasped  at  too  much.  Wide- 
spread refusal  to  accept  that  part  of  the  Formulary  which 
had  required  the  condemnation  of  Euphemius  and  Mace- 
donius  began  to  manifest  itself,  the  new  Patriarch, 
Euphemius,  John's  successor,  setting  the  example.  There 
were  tokens  that  to  insist  on  this  point  might  provoke  a 
revolution  perilous  to  the  crown,  perhaps  to  the  life,  of  the 
Emperor  ;  and  accordingly  both  Justin  and  Justinian  wrote 
to  the  Pope,  entreating  him  to  be  content  with  the  erasure 
of  the  name  of  Acacius  alone,  and  telling  him  of  the  risks 
attending  too  rigid  insistance  on  all  the  terms  of  the  For- 
mulary ;  and  the  Patriarch  sent  a  similar  memorial,  accom- 
panied with  a  magnificent  present  of  altar-plate.  Hormisda 
returned  at  first  an  absolute  refusal  to  modify  his  demands, 
but,  on  the  Emperor  letting  it  be  evident  that  he  was  ready 
now  to  side  against  Rome,  changed  his  policy,  and  left  it 
open  to  the  Patriarch  to  receive  into  the  Roman  commu- 
nion, as  holding  a  proxy  from  himself,  all  who  would 
anathematize  Acacius  and  the  Eutychian  leaders.^  The 
immediate  result  was  that  the  Patriarch  replaced  the  names 
of  Euphemius  and  Macedonius  on  the  diptychs,  without 
any  protest  from  Rome,  and  thus  much  of  the  ground  so 
recently  gained  after  nearly  a  century  of  steady  effort  was 
lost  again.  Shortly  afterwards  Hormisda  died  (August  6, 
523),  and  was  succeeded  by  John  I.  The  short  career  of 
this  Pontiff  supplies  the  key  to  the  relations  between  his 
predecessor  and  the  Emperor,  as  will  now  be  shown  briefly. 
The  Emperor  Justin  soon  betook  himself  to  an  acrid  per- 
secution of  his  Arian  subjects,  and  King  Theodoric,  who 
regarded  himself  as  their  natural  champion,  readily  re- 
sponded to  an  appeal  they  made  to  his  good  offices,  and, 

'  Baron.  Ann.  521,  xxviii.-xxx. 


CHAP.  VII.]    BREAKS    IX    THE    CHAIN    OF    PRESCRIPTION.    287 

after  casting  about  for  the  most  effectual  mode  of  aiding  them, 
bethought  himself  of  sending  the  Pope  as  his  ambassador 
to  Constantinople,  to  remonstrate  with  the  Emperor,  and  to 
obtain  a  cessation  of  the  persecution.  The  means  he 
employed  to  extort  a  consent  was  a  threat  of  enacting  an 
edict  against  the  Catholics  of  Italy,  if  that  against  the 
Arians  of  the  East  were  not  abrogated  by  the  Emperor — a 
piece  of  moral  suasion  which  proved  successful ;  and  the 
Pope  actually  did  set  out  for  Constantinople,  at  the  head  of 
an  embassy  in  which  five  other  bishops  and  four  senators 
of  high  rank  were  conjoined.  He  was  received  with 
extraordinary  honours,  and  made  no  difficulty  about  com- 
municating with  any  one  save  Timothy,  the  Eutychian 
Patriarch  of  Alexandria,  so  that  a  full  retractation  was  in 
this  way  made  of  the  constructive  anathemas  of  the  For- 
mulary. John  succeeded  entirely  in  the  mission  with 
which  he  was  entrusted,  and  procured  toleration  for  his 
sovereign's  clients  with  suspicious  facility,  as  it  seemed  to 
Theodoric,  for  upon  his  return  to  Italy  to  give  an  account 
of  his  embassy,  he  was  thrown  into  prison  immediately 
after  his  interview  with  the  king  at  Ravenna,  and  remained 
there  until  his  death  on  May  i8,  526.  No  explanation  of 
this  transaction  is  adequate,  or  even  plausible,  save  that 
which  ascribes  the  king's  anger  to  the  discovery  of  a  wide- 
spread conspiracy  for  the  re-annexation  of  Italy  to  the 
Empire,  for  an  alleged  share  in  which  Boethius  and 
Symmachus  also  suffered  the  penalty  of  death.  That  such 
a  conspiracy  was  in  fact  on  foot  is  more  than  probable ; 
that  the  designs  of  the  Byzantine  Court  were  as  Theodoric 
suspected  admits  of  no  doubt  at  all,  for  the  wars  of  Beli- 
sarius  proved  it  ere  long;  and  the  intercourse  between 
Rome  and  Constantinople  had  been  too  intimate  for  a  long 
time  not  to  arouse  the  gravest  distrust.  A  very  important 
principle  was  introduced  on  the  appointment  of  a  successor 
to  Pope  John  I.  The  king  nominated  Felix,  a  man  of 
high  character,  to  the  Papal  Chair  on  his  own  responsibility, 
in  order  to  avoid  the  tumults  and  bloodshed  only  too  likely 
to  attend  a  disputed   election,  as   the   competitors   were 


288  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VII. 

numerous  and  party  spirit  was  running  high.  But  all  sides 
joined  together  against  the  royal  choice,  as  an  infringe- 
ment of  the  hberty  of  election ;  and  Theodoric  agreed  to 
a  compromise,  whereby  the  existing  appointment  was  to 
hold  good,  but  all  future  elections  were  to  vest  in  the 
clergy  and  people  of  Rome,  subject  to  the  approval  and 
confirmation  of  the  Crown,  which  was  to  have  the  right  of 
veto — an  arrangement  whose  practical  good  sense  is  attested 
by  its  continuance,  at  any  rate  in  theory,  till  the  erection  of 
the  College  of  Cardinals  into  the  electorate  of  the  Popedom 
more  than  five  hundred  years  afterwards.  Theodoric  died  a 
few  months  after  the  accession  of  Felix  IV.,  and  was  followed 
to  the  grave  in  the  next  year,  527,  by  the  Emperor  Justin. 
The  removal  of  the  Gothic  king's  strong  hand  was  soon 
evident,  for  on  the  death  of  Pope  Felix  IV.,  in  530,  there  was 
a  disputed  election  between  Boniface  and  Dioscorus,  who 
were  both  chosen  and  installed  on  the  same  day  by  their 
several  adherents,  whose  actuating  motive  in  both  cases 
appears  to  have  been  open  bribery.  The  death  of  Dios- 
corus within  a  few  days  left  the  victory  with  Boniface  II., 
who  first  proceeded  to  excommunicate  and  curse  the 
memory  of  his  late  competitor  as  a  simoniac,  and  caused 
the  sentence,  after  receiving  a  number  of  confirmatory 
signatures,  to  be  laid  up  in  the  archives  of  the  Roman 
Church :  a  proceeding  reversed,  however,  by  Agapetus,  his 
near  successor.  His  next  step  was  to  obtain  a  decree  from 
his  pliant  Synod,  empowering  him  to  name  his  own  suc- 
cessor, and  he  thereupon  chose  his  deacon,  Vigilius,  for  the 
reversion  of  the  Chair.  But  neither  the  electors  nor  the 
State — represented  by  Queen  Amalasuintha,  daughter  of 
Theodoric,  and  regent  in  the  minority  of  her  son.  King 
Athalaric  —  proved  content  with  this  encroachment,  and 
the  Pope  was  compelled  to  revoke  the  new  ordinance  in 
a  Synod  held  the  next  year  (531),  to  burn  it  with  his  own 
hand  in  presence  of  the  Senate,  and  to  confess  himself  guilty 
of  high  treason  {Fapa  reum  se  confessus  est  majestatis)?- 

'  Anastas.  Biblioth.  ap.  Baron.  Ann.  531,  ii. 


CHAP.  VII.]    BRE.4KS    IN    THE   CHAIN   OF    PRESCRIPTION.    289 

The  failure  of  the  Formulary  to  exercise  any  practical 
influence  in  the  East  was  illustrated  in  this  Pontificate  by 
one  of  the  many  disputes  recorded  between  Rome  and  Con- 
stantinople in  respect  of  jurisdiction  over  Eastern  Illyricum. 
Stephen,  Metropolitan  of  Larissa  in  Thessaly,  within  that 
eparchate,  sent  one  of  his  suffragans  to  Rome,  appealing 
against  a  sentence  of  deposition  pronounced  against  him 
by  Epiphanius,  Patriarch  of  Constantinople,  partly  on  the 
ground  of  the  merits  of  the  sentence  itself,  but  also 
alleging  that  by  the  custom  of  his  province  the  appeal  lay 
to  Rome,  and  not  to  Constantinople,  even  apart  from  the 
general  right  of  the  Pope  to  hear  appeals  from  all  quarters. 
It  was  easy  for  Stephen  to  show  that  the  Popes  from 
Damasus  I.  onwards  had  exercised  or  claimed  jurisdiction 
there,  and  had  appointed  a  succession  of  vicars  ;  and  the 
fact  that  the  Bishops,  whose  complaints  of  the  irregularity 
of  his  election  had  led  to  his  fall,  made  their  appeal  to 
Constantinople,  and  not  to  Rome,  was  not  likely  to  make 
their  judgment  weigh  much  with  a  Roman  Pope  and  Synod. 
Accordingly,  a  decree  was  passed  restoring  Stephen  to  his 
see  ;  but  we  have  a  letter  from  Pope  x\gapetus,  four  years 
later,  complaining  to  the  Emperor  Justinian  that  Epiphanius 
had  paid  no  attention  to  the  Papal  decision,  but  had 
consecrated  one  Achilles  instead. ^ 

Pope  Boniface  II.  died  in  532,  and  the  scenes  of  bribery 
and  corruption  which  had  disgraced  the  election  when  he 
was  chosen — his  own  share  in  which  is  almost  proved  by 
a  decree  then  enacted  by  the  Senate  against  any  future 
offence  of  the  sort — were  repeated  on  a  yet  larger  and  more 
shameful  scale  during  the  vacancy  of  the  see.  In  fact  we 
have  a  letter  from  King  Athalaric,  addressed  to  Pope  John 
II.,  stating  that  not  only  were  the  funds  for  the  relief  of  the 
poor  diverted  to  this  purpose,  but  the  very  altar-vessels 
were  put  up  to  auction  to  supply  means  for  the  same 
object*     He  made  this  charge  on  the  complaint  of  the 


•  Baron.  Ann.  535,  lii.-liii.  *  Cassiod.  Var.  ix.  15. 


290  THE   PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VII. 

Advocate  of  the  Roman  Church,  and  the  result  was  the 
enactment  of  a  fresh  decree  from  the  king,  affirming  and 
amplifying  the  edict  of  530,  regulating  the  fees  payable  for 
the  future  at  the  election  of  any  Pope,  metropolitan,  or 
bishop,  ordering  the  new  Pope,  John  II.,  to  publish  the 
decree  itself  in  all  churches  subject  to  his  jurisdiction,  and 
enjoining  the  Prefect  of  Rome  to  have  it  engraved  on 
marble  tablets,  and  set  up  conspicuously  in  the  vestibule  of 
St.  Peter's.^  These  proofs  of  the  continuous  bribery  which 
prevailed  in  the  local  Church  of  Rome  have  a  very  im- 
portant legal  and  theological  bearing  on  the  whole  question 
of  the  Petrine  claims,  because  the  received  Roman  doc- 
trine is  that  simony  is  not  only  mortal  sin  and  sacrilege, 
but  also  heresy  of  the  gravest  kind ;  voiding,  besides,  all 
offices  procured  directly  or  indirectly  through  its  means, 
and  no  length  of  prescription  can  ever  cure  this  defect.^ 
Consequently,  every  instance  of  the  kind  constitutes  a  flaw 
in  the  Papal  succession,  not  only  voiding  the  special  Pon- 
tificate in  which  it  occurs,  but  seriously  weakening  the 
evidence  for  the  canonicity  of  any  subsequent  election 
where  the  result  may  have  been  affected  by  electors  de- 
riving their  orders  or  title  from  a  simoniacal  Pope. 
Baronius,  fully  alive  to  the  difficulty,  assures  us  that  the 
bribers  never  were  elected,  and  that  the  suffrages  always 
fell  on  men  of  blameless  antecedents.  But  he  neither 
offers  any  proof,  nor  explains  the  singular  persistence  of 
the  candidates  in  a  method  which,  on  his  showing,  never 
succeeded. 

A  doctrinal  dispute  which  had  originated  under  Pope 
Hormisda,  and  was  revived  under  John  II.,  has  equal 
value  as  a  test  of  that  part  of  the  Papal  claims  which 
alleges  that  the  Pope  holds  the  office  of  supreme  and 
infallible  teacher,  as  well  as  ruler,  of  the  Catholic  Church. 
The  question  at  issue  was  whether  the  expression  "  One 
of    the  Trinity  suffered  in   the   flesh "  were  orthodox  or 


*  Cassiod.  Var.  ix.  16.    "^  Ferraris,  Prompta  Bibliotheca,  s.v."  Simonia. 


CHAP.  VII.]    BREAKS    IN   THE    CHAIN    OF    PRESCRIPTION.    29 1 

heretical.  Some  Scythian  monks  who  upheld  the  phrase 
were  impeached  as  heretics,  and  appealed  in  519  to  the 
Pope's  legates,  then  at  Constantinople,  who  promptly  gave 
judgment  against  them.  They  appealed  to  the  Pope  him- 
self, sending  four  of  their  number  as  envoys  to  Rome, 
where  they  were  very  badly  received;  for  not  only  did 
Hormisda  confirm  the  sentence  of  his  legates,  but  kept  the 
envoys  in  virtual  imprisonment  for  a  twelvemonth,  at  the 
end  of  which  they  either  made  their  escape  or  were  ex- 
pelled. In  any  case  they  contrived,  before  quitting  Rome, 
to  post  up  in  several  public  places  their  confession  of  faith 
in  twelve  articles,  to  which  as  many  anathemas  were 
appended  against  all,  without  exception,  who  rejected 
them.  The  Pope  was  extremely  indignant  at  this  piece  of 
audacious  defiance,  and  addressed  a  letter  on  the  subject  to 
Possessor,  an  African  Bishop,  in  which  he  complained  against 
them  in  violent  language  as  dishonest,  crafty,  disputatious, 
heterodox,  intractable,  and  rebellious,  with  no  compunction 
in  setting  up  their  own  judgment  against  that  of  the  Holy 
See,  and  added  that  he  makes  these  charges  in  order  that 
Possessor  may  give  them  the  widest  publicity  throughout 
the  East.^  This  was  accordingly  done,  but  only  with  the 
result  that  Maxentius,  one  of  the  inculpated  monks,  pub- 
lished a  reply,  denying  the  authenticity  of  the  Pope's  letter, 
as  impossible  to  have  proceeded  from  any  Christian  Bishop, 
and  as  a  flagrantly  heretical  document :  a  view  in  which 
lie  was  upheld  by  the  great  body  of  Oriental  bishops,  and 
by  the  African  bishops  also,  headed  by  St.  Fulgentius  of 
Ruspe.  So  the  matter  rested  until  the  controversy 
was  kindled  afresh  in  533,  in  consequence  of  an  edict  of 
Justinian  against  all  heretics,  when  it  became  a  matter  of 
j)ractical  importance  to  know  which  of  the  competing  views 
brought  its  champions  within  purview  of  the  law.  Those 
who  took  the  side  which  Hormisda  had  espoused  sent  two 
envoys  to  Rome  to  obtain  a  decree  in  their  favour  from 


Baron.  An//.  520,  xvi.-xviii. 
U   2 


292  THE   PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VII. 

the  new  Pope,  instructing  them  to  plead  that  the  point 
had  been  already  ruled  in  their  favour,  and  that  it  could 
not  now  be  decided  in  the  opposite  way  without  great  dis- 
credit to  the  Church  of  Rome,  according  to  that  saying  of 
the  Apostle,  "  If  I  build  again  the  things  which  I  de- 
stroyed, I  make  myself  a  transgressor."  1  Justinian,  who 
held  the  other  view,  despatched  two  Bishops,  Hypatius 
of  Ephesus  and  Demetrius  of  PhiHppi,  on  a  mission  to 
Rome,  bearing  with  them  a  long  confession  of  his  own 
belief,  inclusive  of  the  disputed  tenet,  and  also  a  letter  to 
the  Pope  telling  him  that  this  was  the  received  doctrine  of 
the  whole  Eastern  Church,  and  desiring  him  to  declare  in 
answer  that  he  received  to  his  communion  all  who  held 
that  faith,  and  no  others.  The  Pope  heard  both  sides,  but 
found  himself  in  great  difficulty,  between  the  risk  to  the 
prestige  of  his  Chair  involved  in  condemning  his  prede- 
cessor's ruling,  and  the  practical  danger  of  setting  himself 
against  the  powerful  Emperor  and  the  whole  Eastern 
Church.  He  assembled  the  Roman  clergy  to  discuss  the 
questions,  but  they  were  so  divided  on  the  merits  that  no 
result  could  be  attained  in  this  wise ;  and  he  then  applied 
for  counsel  to  extern  Churches,  and  notably  to  Ferrandus  of 
Carthage,  the  first  canonist  of  the  day.  Ferrandus  promptly 
replied  in  favour  of  Justinian's  view,  and  was  supported 
therein  by  the  chief  contemporary  theologians.  Hereupon 
the  Pope  assembled  his  Synod  anew,  and  formally  approved 
the  confession  of  Justinian,  declaring  that  all  who  disputed 
it  should  be  excommunicated.  He  sent  notice  of  this 
judgment  to  the  Emperor  and  to  the  Senate  of  Rome, 
specially  warning  the  latter  against  holding  communion 
with  those  monks  at  Constantinople  (the  Acoemetse)  who 
upheld  the  doctrine  of  Hormisda.^  This  curious  trans- 
action has  a  further  historical  value,  in  that  it  enables  us 
to  appraise  exactly  the  force  of  certain  phrases  of  com- 
pliment addressed  by  Justinian  to  the  Pope,  which  have 


Galat.  ii.  18.  ^  Liberatus,  Breviar.  c.  24. 


CHAP.  VII.]    BREAKS    IN   THE   CHAIN    OF   PRESCRIPTION.    293 

been  relied  on  by  Ultramontanes  as  establishing  the 
acceptance  of  the  Supremacy  by  the  East  in  the  sixth 
century.  The  most  noteworthy  of  these  expressions  are 
embodied  in  the  Code,  and  a  few  citations  will  be 
useful : — 

"Justinian,  victor,  pious,  fortunate,  famous,  triumphant,  ever 
Augustus,  to  John,  the  most  holy  Archbishop  and  Patriarch  of  the 
noble  city  of  Rome.  Paying  honour  to  the  Apostolic  See  and  to  your 
Holiness,  as  always  has  been  and  is  our  desire,  and  honouring  your 
Blessedness  as  a  father,  we  hasten  to  bring  to  the  knowledge  of  your 
Holiness  all  that  pertains  to  the  condition  of  the  Churches,  since  it 
has  always  been  our  great  aim  to  safeguard  the  unity  of  your  Apostolic 
See  and  the  position  of  the  holy  Churches  of  God  which  now  prevails 
and  abides  securely  without  any  disturbing  trouble.  Therefore  we 
have  been  sedulous  to  subject  and  unite  all  the  priests  of  the  Orient 
throughout  its  whole  extent  to  the  See  of  your  Holiness,'  Whatever 
questions  happen  to  be  mooted  at  present,  we  have  thought  necessary 
to  be  brought  to  your  Holiness's  knowledge,  however  clear  and  unques- 
tionable they  may  be,  and  though  firmly  held  and  taught  by  all  the 
clergy  in  accordance  with  the  doctrine  of  your  Apostolic  See  ;  for  we- 
do  not  suffer  that  anything  which  is  mooted,  however  clear  and  unques- 
tionable, pertaining  to  the  state  of  the  Churches,  should  fail  to  be 
made  known  to  your  Holiness,  as  being  the  head  of  all  the  Churches. 
For,  as  we  have  said  before,  we  are  zealous  for  the  increase  of  the 
honour  and  authority  of  your  See  in  all  respects."^ 

Nothing  looks  more  precise  than  this  pronouncement ;  and 
yet  it  is  not  merely  balanced  by  the  same  title  of  ''Head 
of  all  the  Churches,"  applied  in  the  same  Code  to  the  See 
of  Constantinople,^  and  by  the  formal  re-assertion  in  the 
Noz'eils  of  the  decrees  of  Constantinople  and  Chalcedon  as 
to  the  rank  and  powers  of  the  former  city,"*  but  this  seeming 
act  of  submission  is  actually  the  preamble  of  the  very  con- 
fession of  faith  which  Justinian  forced  on  the  Pope,  com- 
pelling him  to  alter  the  ruling  of  the  Roman  Church  on  a 


*  This  incidentally  proves  that  the  East  had  not  been  hitherto  sub- 
ject to  the  Roman  .See. 

»  Cod.  Justin,   lib.  i.  tit.  I. 

*  "H  iv  l^tavaTavTivovirSkii  iKKXtjaia  iraadp  tuiv  aWwv  iorl  Ktifxxkfi, 
— Cod.  Just.  I.  ii.  24. 

*  Novell,  cxxxi.  J,  2. 


294  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [cHAP.  VII. 

point  of  doctrine,  in  order  to  bring  it  into  conformity  with 
the  teaching  of  the  Eastern  Church.  There  can  be  httle 
doubt,  however,  that  Justinian,  whose  plans  for  the  re- 
annexation  of  Italy  to  the  Empire  were  nearly  ripe,  was 
fully  alive  to  the  value  of  the  Pope's  alliance,  and  would 
spare  no  fair  words  which  might  help  to  secure  it ;  while 
it  equally  suited  the  Pope's  purpose  to  accept  them  as 
seriously  meant,  saying  in  his  reply  : — 

"Amongst  the  shining  merits  of  your  wisdom  and  goodness,  most 
Christian  Prince,  one  star  sheds  especial  light,  in  that  through  love  of 
the  faith  and  desire  of  charity,  you,  instructed  in  Church  discipline, 
maintain  the  reverence  due  to  the  Roman  See,  and  subject  all  thereto, 
and  lead  unto  its  unity ;  .  .  .  .  which  See  the  canons  of  the 
Fathers  and  the  statutes  of  sovereigns  declare  to  be  truly  Head  of 
all  the  Churches,  as  the  most  honoured  woi'ds  of  your  piety  furthe 
attest." ' 

John  II.  died  in  May,  535,  and  was  peaceably  succeeded 
by  Agapetus,  Archdeacon  of  Rome.  His  Pontificate, 
though  one  of  the  briefest  in  the  annals  of  the  Papacy,  for 
he  sat  but  ten  months,  was  very  eventful  in  its  bearing  on 
the  consolidation  of  the  Papal  power.  The  first  incident 
which  calls  for  notice  is  his  reply  to  the  congratulatory 
letter  sent  him  by  Justinian,  who  asked  him  therein  to  con- 
firm his  predecessor's  decision  as  to  the  proposition  "  One 
of  the  Trinity  suffered,"  and  to  declare  excommunicate 
such  as  rejected  it.  The  new  Pope  complied,  but  told  the 
Emperor  that  he  did  so  because  the  doctrine  was  that  of 
the  Fathers,  not  because  a  layman  was  good  enough  to  tell 
him  what  to  teach.^ 

Justinian  soon  applied  to  him  again,  urging  that  the 
Arian  bishops  and  clergy  should  be  allowed,  on  conforming 
to  the  Catholic  Church,  to  retain  the  ecclesiastical  rank 
they  had  held  in  their  sect ;  and  further  desired  that  he 


'  Baron,  An7i.  534,  xv. 

^  "  Non  quia  laici  auctoritatem  prsedicationis  admittimus,  sed  quia 
studium  fidei  vestrae  patrum  nostrorum  regulis  conveniens  confirmamus 
atque  roboramus." — Baron.  Atift.   535,  xxxii. 


CHAP.  VII.]    BREAKS    IN    THE   CHAIN    OF    PRESCRIPTION.    295 

would  transfer  the  seat  of  the  Papal  Vicariate  over  Eastern 
Illyricum  from  Thessalonica  to  Justiniana  Prima,  a  town 
which  has  long  ago  returned  to  its  earlier  name  of  Scupi 
(2kov7ro(),  being  now  known  as  Skopia  or  Ushkub. 

In  return  for  these  concessions,  the  Emperor  offered 
to  reopen  the  case  of  Stephen  of  Larissa,  deposed  by 
the  Patriarch  Epiphanius,  and  to  allow  its  rehearing, 
provided  the  Pope  would  send  legates  to  the  East  for  the 
purpose.  The  reply  of  Agapetus  to  the  more  important  of 
these  demands  is  of  the  highest  evidential  value,  as  ex- 
plaining the  true  meaning  of  an  appeal  to  the  "  Canons  " 
on  the  part  of  the  Roman  Curia  when  any  question  of  the 
prerogatives  or  discipline  of  the  Holy  See  was  mooted. 
The  Pope  declares  the  concession  to  be  impossible,  not 
merely  on  the  ground  of  practical  inexpediency,  but  that 
to  admit  heretics  to  ecclesiastical  office  would  be  an  open 
breach  of  the  "  constitutions  of  the  Fathers,"  a  phrase 
which  he  glosses  a  little  later  as  meaning  "  the  public  and 
synodal  acts  of  the  Apostolic  See."  ^  In  point  of  fact,  the 
conciliar  authority  is  all  but  entirely  in  the  opposite  sense. 
The  General  Council  at  Nicaea  had  enacted  in  its  eighth 
canon  (according  to  its  most  probable  interpretation)  that 
conformists  from  the  Cathari  should  retain  their  ecclesias- 
tical rank.  Canon  LXVIII.  of  the  African  Code  gives 
every  Bishop  the  option  of  recognising  Donatist  Orders, 
and  specially  directs  that  notice  of  this  enactment  be  sent 
to  the  Pope,  as  being  merely  the  re-affirmation  of  the  re- 
ceived usage  of  the  African  Churches.  St.  Augustine 
expressly  states  that  a  Roman  Synod  had  decreed  the 
admission  of  the  Donatist  clergy  in  their  ecclesiastical  rank  : 
his  indications  fix  it  as  that  of  313  under  Pope  Melchiades.- 
The  first  Council  of  Orleans  in  511  had  enacted  in  its 
tenth  canon  that  heretic  ecclesiastics,  on  conforming, 
should  be  admissible  to  any  grade  at  the  Bishop's  discre- 
tion, with  a  benedictory  imposition  of  hands;  while  the 


*  Baron.  Aptn.  535,  1.  *  Lib.  ad  Bonifac,  c.  47. 


296  THE    PETRINE   CLAIMS,  [CHAV.  VII. 

whole  evidence  on  the  other  side  is  Canon  LI.  of  the 
Council  of  Elvira  in  305,  denying  ordination  to  lay  con- 
verts from  heresy,  and  decreeing  the  deposition  of  clerical 
ones. 

When  the  ground  of  the  Pope's  assertion  is  sought, 
none  is  discoverable  save  a  decretal  letter  of  his  prede- 
cessor Innocent  I.  to  Alexander,  Patriarch  of  Antioch ; 
wherein  it  is  laid  down  that  clerical  converts  from  Arianism 
cannot  be  admitted  as  ecclesiastics,  because,  having  lost 
through  their  heresy  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  which 
operates  chiefly  in  ordination,  they  have  no  power  of  be- 
stowing it.  It  is  thus  clear  that  the  Popes  treated  the  local 
constitutions  and  usages  of  their  own  See  as  being  in  fact 
laws  of  and  for  the  Church  Universal,  and  that  such  is  the 
meaning  to  be  put  on  any  of  their  allegations  of  canons  as 
making  in  their  favour,  when  no  such  canons  are  to  be 
found  recorded  in  the  Acts  of  the  acknowledged  Councils. 
Agapetus  accepted  the  oifer  of  the  Emperor  as  to  the  case 
of  Stephen  of  Larissa,  complaining,  however,  of  what  had 
been  done  so  far ;  but  there  is  no  record  of  the  final  set- 
tlement of  the  dispute.  The  victories  of  Belisarius  over 
the  Vandals  in  Africa  led  to  a  temporary  revival  of  the 
Church  there,  almost  crushed  out  as  it  had  been  by  the 
long  Arian  persecution  ;  and  a  synod  of  2 1 7  bishops,  assem- 
bled at  Carthage  in  534  under  the  Metropolitan  Reparatus, 
sent  a  letter  to  Pope  John  II.,  in  which  they  told  him  that 
their  opinion  was  against  permitting  the  conforming  Arian 
clergy  to  retain  their  rank ;  but  that  they  wished,  before 
formally  publishing  this  decision,  to  know  what  might  be  the 
usage  or  rule  of  the  Roman  Church  on  the  matter,  and  that 
they  would  be  glad  of  the  Pope's  advice,  on  the  chance  of 
his  being  able  to  give  them  a  reply  which  they  could  gene- 
rally approve  and  accept.^  This  letter  had  been  designed  for 
John  II.,  but  it  fell  to  Agapetus  to  answer  it,  which  he  did 


^  "  Potest  enim  Sedes  Apostolica  (quantum  speramus)  tale  nobis 
interrogantibus  dare  responsum,  quale  nos  approbate  concorditer,  ex- 
plorata  veritate,  faciat." — Baron.  Ann.  535,  xxiii. 


CHAP.  VII.]    BREAKS    IN   THE   CHAIN    OF    PRESCRIPTION.    297 

in  a  sense  very  different  from  that  of  the  senders,  treating 
it  as  an  act  of  homage  and  duty  to  the  ApostoHc  Primacy, 
and  directing  Reparatus  to  make  the  Papal  rescript,  refus- 
ing recognition  to  the  Arian  clergy,  known  to  all  within  his 
jurisdiction,  that  no  one  might  plead  ignorance  of  the 
decision  of  the  Apostolic  See  as  to  the  meaning  of  the 
canons.^ 

A  more  important  episode  in  the  life  of  Agapetus  was 
now  at  hand.  Athalaric,  the  young  King  of  Italy,  died 
in  534,  and  the  feeble  Theodahat,  nephew  of  Theodoric, 
on  whom  Queen  Amalasuintha  bestowed  her  hand,  and 
whom  she  raised  to  the  rank  of  king,  rewarded  her 
confidence  by  imprisoning  and  murdering  her.  This  gave 
Justinian  the  opportunity  for  which  he  had  been  waiting. 
He  at  once  declared  war  on  Theodahat,  and  promptly 
attacked  and  subdued  Dalmatia  and  Sicily.  Theodahat, 
conscious  that  he  was  unprepared  for  successful  resistance, 
determined  to  send  the  Pope  on  an  embassy  to  Constanti- 
nople to  make  terms,  directing  him  to  say  that,  if  his  pro- 
posals were  rejected,  Rome  should  be  destroyed,  and  the 
Senate  and  people  be  put  to  the  sword.  It  is  noticeable 
that  the  property  of  the  Roman  Church  had  been  so 
squandered  by  successive  simoniacal  Popes,  either  by 
direct  alienation  or  by  mortgage,  in  order  to  pay  for  elec- 
tioneering expenses,  that  Agapetus  had  to  pawn  the 
Church-plate  to  raise  funds  for  his  outfit ;  a  fact  which 
confutes  the  theory  of  Baronius,  for  it  is  obvious  that  the 
unsuccessful  bribers  could  not  have  obtained  control  over 
the  Papal  revenues,  and  that  the  waste  must  be  set  down 
to  the  account  of  Popes  themselves.  His  political  mission 
to  Constantinople  came  to  nothing,  but  he  was  at  once 
engaged  in  an  important  Church  question.  The  Empress 
Theodora  had  procured  the  election  of  Anthimus,  Bishop 
of  Trebizond,  to  the  vacant  Patriarchal  See,  an  appoint- 
ment at  once  in  the  teeth  of  the  canons  against  translations, 


*  Baron.  Ann.  535,  xxxvii.-xli. 


298  THE   PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VII. 

and  objectionable  besides,  because  of  the  Eutychian  tenets 
ascribed  to  him.  Agapetus  refused  to  communicate  with 
Anthimus  till  he  should  publicly  clear  himself  of  the 
charge  of  Eutychianism,  and  added  that  he  should  in  no 
case  acknowledge  him  as  lawful  Patriarch.  He  stood  out 
boldly  against  the  threats  of  Justinian,  bringing  him  round 
to  his  side  at  last,  and  securing  the  supersession  of  Anthi- 
mus, and  the  election  of  Mennas,  Warden  of  St.  Samson's 
Hospital,  Constantinople,  whom  the  Pope  consecrated  in 
his  stead.  Baronius  cites  this  as  a  direct  exercise  of  the 
Supremacy,  in  that  Agapetus,  as  above  all  canons,  deposed 
the  first  Bishop  of  the  Eastern  Church  without  the  concur- 
rence of  a  Council,  though  such  concurrence  was  required 
by  canon  law.^  But  in  truth  there  was  no  question  of 
deposition  at  all,  because  Anthimus  had  no  canonical  claim 
to  the  see,  as  being  invalidly  chosen;  and  there  is  the 
incontestable  evidence  of  the  Novells  of  Justinian  that 
Anthimus  was  also  synodically  condemned,  and,  further, 
that  all  the  proceedings  were  civilly  validated  by  an  impe- 
rial decree.^  As  to  the  consecration  of  the  new  Patriarch 
by  the  Pope,  Liberatus  tells  us  expressly  that  it  was  by 
favour  of  the  Emperor  that  the  act  took  place.^ 

Agapetus  died  at  Constantinople,  in  April  536,  and 
Sylverius,  son  of  Pope  Hormisda,  was  nominated  by  Theo- 
dahat,  and  elected  — it  is  said,  under  intimidation — by  the 
clergy.  The  new  Pope  had  an  understanding  with  Belisarius, 
then  preparing  to  advance  on  Rome,  and  actually  succeeded 
in  getting  the  people  to  rise  against  the  weak  Gothic  garrison, 
and  to  invite  the  Imperial  general  to  take  possession  of  the 
city  for  his  master,  which  he  did  on  December  to,  536.^ 
This  might  have  given  him  a  title  to  the  goodwill  of  the  con- 
querors, but  a  perfidious  intrigue,  long  matured  against 
him,  was  to  avenge  his  treason  to  his  own  sovereign.  Vigi- 
lius,  deacon  of  the  Roman  Church,  who  had  accompanied 
Pope  Agapetus  to  Constantinople,  continued  there  as  resi- 


'  Baron.  Ann.  536,  xxxi.  ^  Novell.  Just.  xlii. 

^  Breviar.  c.  21.  *  Gibbon,  c.  41. 


CHAP.  VII.]    BREAKS    IN   THE   CHAIN    OF   PRESCRIPTION.    299 

dent  nuncio  or  legate,  and  entered  into  a  plot  with  the 
Empress  Theodora  for  his  own  advancement  to  the  Papacy 
with  her  aid,  which  he  was  to  repay  by  declaring  himself 
a  Eutychian  on  his  election.  She  provided  him  with 
seven  hundred  pounds  of  gold  for  the  purpose  of  bribery, 
and  also  with  letters  to  Belisarius  and  his  wife  Antonina,  to 
secure  their  co-operation.  He  was  too  late  to  reach  Rome 
before  the  election,  and  the  question  then  was  how  to  get 
rid  of  Sylverius.  In  the  meanwhile  Theodahat  had  been 
slain  by  a  subject  he  had  outraged,  and  Witiges,  the  new 
Gothic  king,  made  a  bold  attempt  to  reconquer  Rome. 
He  was  supported  by  a  party  within  the  city,  and  a  corre- 
spondence was  produced  implicating  Pope  Sylverius  in  the 
plot.  It  is  believed  by  most  modern  critics  that  the  charge 
was  falsely  trumped  up  between  Theodora  and  Antonina, 
and  that  Vigilius  had  procured  the  forgery.  In  any  case, 
it  appears  that  the  Pope  was  brought  before  Belisarius  and 
told  that  he  might  save  his  person  and  rank  by  promising 
to  condemn  the  Council  of  Chalcedon,  and  to  receive  the 
Eutychians  to  communion.  He  steadfastly  refused,  and 
was  at  once  stripped  of  the  ensigns  of  his  rank,  without 
any  trial,  ecclesiastical  or  civil,  and  banished  to  Patara  in 
Lycia.  Hereupon  Vigilius  paid  over  to  Belisarius  two 
hundred  pounds  of  gold,  and  the  very  next  day  the  general 
convened  the  Roman  clergy,  informed  them  that  the  Pope 
was  deposed,  and  procured  the  unresisted  election  of  Vigi- 
lius in  his  room. 

But  the  intruder  was  afraid  to  fulfil  his  part  of  the  bar- 
gain by  such  an  unpopular  act  as  the  public  profession  of 
Eutychianism  in  Rome  itself;  though  committing  himself 
fully  to  that  heresy  in  letters  to  the  Empress,  and  to  the  three 
Eutychian  Patriarchs  (Anthimus  of  Constantinople,  Severus 
of  Antioch,  and  Theodosius  of  Alexandria),  whose  authen- 
ticity, though  of  course  denied  by  Baronius  (mainly  on  the 
strength  of  a  mendacious  letter  from  Vigilius  to  Justinian, 
alleging  that  he  had  never  held  any  belief  save  that  of  the 
Four  General  Councils  and  the  Tome  of  St.  Leo),  is  ac- 
knowledged by  Pagi  and  by  Fleury,  who  accept  the  contem- 


300  THE    PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VII. 

porary  statements  of  Liberatus,  Victor  Tunetaniis,  and 
Facundus.  This  was  all  a  little  too  strong  for  Justinian, 
who  sent  Sylverius  back  to  Rome,  to  wait  the  result  of 
a  formal  trial,  but  Belisarius  betrayed  him  into  the  hands  of 
his  rival,  who  deported  him  to  the  desolate  island  of  Pal- 
maria,  where  he  was  soon  either  starved  to  death  or  more 
directly  assassinated.'  Baronius  invents  a  fresh  election  of 
Vigilius  to  the  Papacy  on  the  death  of  Sylverius,  in  order 
to  avoid  the  serious  gap  his  eighteen  years  of  illegal  occu- 
pancy makes  in  the  Petrine  succession ;  but  this  is  rejected 
by  Pagi  and  Papebroch,  who  hold,  nevertheless,  that  the 
defect  was  cured  by  the  subsequent  recognition  of  Vigilius 
as  Pope,  not  only  at  Rome,  but  by  the  Fifth  General  Coun- 
cil ;  but  as  the  point  was  never  mooted  at  the  Council,  this 
latter  plea  is  of  little  weight,  and  the  difficulty  remains  in 
full  force. 

The  vacillations  of  Vigilius  in  the  matter  of  the  "  Three 
Chapters  "  during  the  seven  years  that  he  was  detained  in 
Sicily  and  at  Constantinople  (from  547  to  554  inclusive), 
and  the  contemptuous  treatment  he  met  from  the  Fifth 
General  Council,  have  been  already  referred  to,  and  need 
not  now  be  repeated  ;  but  they  had  one  result  not  apparent 
on  the  surface — namely,  that  the  willingness  he  exhijjited  to 
play  fast  and  loose  with  the  decrees  and  acts  of  Chalce- 
don  had  a  perilous  effect  on  nearly  all  the  Western  Churches, 
which  were  warmly  attached  to  that  Council.  The  Churches 
of  Gaul,  of  the  quasi-Patriarchate  of  Aquileia,  of  Illyricum, 
and  of  North  Africa,  either  openly  or  virtually  renounced 
communion  with  Rome,  as  having  betrayed  the  faith  and 
helped  to  throw  a  slur  on  the  whole  body  of  Christian 
doctrine,  by  condemning  the  Three  Chapters  which  Chal- 
cedon  had  accepted  as  orthodox.  Vigilius  closed  his  evil 
and  contemptible  career  in  555,  on  his  return  journey  from 
Constantinople  to  Rome.  His  successor,  Pelagius  I.,  who 
had  been  his  ready  tool,  was  like  him  thrust  uncanonically 


Liberatus,  c.  22  ;  Procopius. 


CHAP.  VII.]    BREAKS    IN    THE   CHAIN    OF    PRESCRIPTION.    3OI 

on  the  electors  by  Imperial  power ;  so  that  the  whole  body 
of  the  Roman  people  and  clergy  refused  to  acknowledge  or 
communicate  with  him,  and  he  could  not  even  secure  the 
canonical  minimum  of  three  episcopal  consecrators  in  all 
Italy,  but  had  to  substitute  a  mere  presbyter  in  the  third 
place.^  So  he  found  the  great  fabric  of  Papal  prestige,  so 
patiently  built  up  by  the  Popes  of  the  preceding  century 
and  a  half,  tottering  before  his  very  eyes,  and  threatening 
to  fall  at  any  moment.  On  the  one  hand,  the  independence 
and  almost  regal  position  of  the  Popes,  which  had  been 
growing  up  by  reason  of  the  removal  of  the  seat  of  Empire 
from  Italy  to  Constantinople  and  had  suffered  little  restraint 
at  the  hands  of  the  Gothic  kings,  received  a  sudden  check 
on  the  restoration  of  the  Imperial  power  through  the 
victories  of  Belisarius  and  Narses ;  and  the  Papacy  was  re- 
duced politically  to  the  level  of  the  Patriarchate  of  Con- 
stantinople, and  was  actually  treated  as  a  post  within  the 
patronage  of  the  Emperor. 

Imperial  interference  with  the  election  of  a  Pope  began 
in  the  reign  of  Honorius,  on  the  occasion  of  the  contest  in 
418  between  Boniface  I.  and  Eulalius  for  the  Papal  chair,  to 
which  each  had  been  elected  and  consecrated  by  rival  factions. 
Boniface  appealed  to  the  Emperor,  and  procured  his  oppo- 
nent's exile,  and  also  the  enactment  of  an  Imperial  law 
requiring  a  new  election  in  the  event  of  any  dispute.  This 
transaction  served  as  a  ground  for  much  subsequent  inter- 
ference by  the  State  in  the  concerns  of  the  Roman  Church  ; 
and  during  the  reign  of  Justinian,  as  for  some  centuries  after, 
the  election  of  a  Pope  by  the  senate,  clergy,  and  people 
of  Rome  was  merely  provisional  until  confirmed  by  the 
Emperor,  without  whose  licence  the  consecration  could 
not  take  place,  nor  could  the  Pope-elect  lawfully  exer- 
cise any  rights  or  perform  any  duties  of  his  office  till 
such  licence  had  been  received.^      On   the  other  hand. 


'  Liber  Pontificalis  ;  Anastas.  Bibliothec. 

'  However,    Pelagius   II.    was  elected   without    Imperial   sanction 
during  the  Ix)mbard  siege  of  Rome  in  577. 


302  THE   PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VII. 

this  subservience  to  the  Byzantine  Court  was  ill  re- 
ceived by  the  bishops  and  clergy  of  the  Western  king- 
doms beyond  the  limits  of  Imperial  influence,  and  seriously 
weakened  Papal  authority  and  prestige.  And  not  only 
did  the  Churches  of  Gaul  renounce  the  communion  of 
Pope  Pelagius,  as  also  those  of  Illyria  and  Africa,  but  even 
the  Bishops  of  Northern  Italy  repudiated  it,  on  the  ground 
that  the  Pope,  by  accepting  the  decrees  of  Constantinople, 
had  contradicted  those  of  Chalcedon,  and  had  committed 
himself  to  heresy.  The  Tuscan  Bishops  struck  his  name 
out  of  the  Liturgy  ;  those  of  Venetia  and  Istria  erected  the 
metropole  of  Aquileia  into  a  Patriarchate,^  to  which  they 
attached  themselves,  abandoning  all  connexion  with  Rome 
for  a  century  and  a  half;  and  it  was  only  the  terror  of  the 
Lombard  invasion  which  brought  back  the  powerful  dioceses 
of  Milan  and  Ravenna  to  the  Pope's  communion.  That 
was  the  position  which  Pelagius  had  to  face.  His  mode 
of  dealing  with  it  was  to  throw  himself  on  the  civil  power 
for  assistance.  He  called  on  Narses,  then  Viceroy  of  Italy, 
to  arrest  the  refractory  bishops  and  send  them  to  Constan- 
tinople- for  punishment,  on  the  ground  that  separation  from 
the  Roman  See  is  an  act  of  schism  which  it  is  the  duty  of 
the  State  to  punish  as  rebellion ;  but  he  could  not  obtain 
his  request,  and  found  his  own  spiritual  pronouncements 
equally  disregarded. 

These  events  show  that  by  the  middle  of  the  sixth  cen- 
tury it  had  still  proved  impracticable  to  establish  a  pre- 
scription for  the  Papal  claims  and  to  enforce  the  two 
inferences  from  the  Petrine  succession  of  the  Papacy 
(though  that  was  by  this  time  entirely  undisputed),  that  the 


^  The  title  of  Patriarch,  still  enjoyed  by  the  Archbishop  of  Venice, 
is  a  survival  from  the  schism  of  Aquileia  ;  for  the  seat  of  that  patri- 
archate was  transferred  to  Grado  on  sanitary  grounds  within  a  few 
years,  and  the  Lombard  king  Agilulf  persuaded  the  Pope  to  set  up  a 
Catholic  Bishop  there  with  the  title  of  patriarch,  as  a  counterpoise  to 
the  schismatic  prelate,  which  was  accordingly  done,  and  the  rights  of 
this  new  dignity  were  made  over  to  the  see  of  Venice  by  Nicolas  V.  in 
I4SI. 


CHAP.  VII.]    BREAKS    IN   THE   CHAIN    OF    PRESCRIFflON.    303 

Pope  is  the  supreme  teacher  of  Christendom,  and  that 
communion  with  him  is  an  essential  factor  of  Catholicity. 
The  two  next  successors  of  Pelagius  I. — John  III.  and 
Benedict  I. — did  not  visibly  alter  the  situation  ;  but  Pela- 
gius II.,  who  was  chosen  in  577,  revived  the  Leonine  atti- 
tude by  protesting  against  the  style  of  CEcumenical  Patriarch 
assumed  by  John  the  Faster  at  Constantinople.  He  professed 
to  annul  the  acts  of  a  Synod  at  Constantinople,  on  the 
ground  of  that  title  having  been  used  in  the  course  of  the 
proceedings  and  in  the  signature  of  its  decree  which  acquitted 
Gregory  of  Antioch ;  he  alleged  that  the  universal  pri- 
macy vesting  in  the  Roman  See  gave  it  the  sole  and  exclusive 
privilege  of  convoking  and  presiding  over  all  great  Church 
Councils  ;  and  he  threatened  to  excommunicate  John  unless 
he  divested  himself  of  a  title  which  even  the  Roman  Pope, 
though  supreme  Patriarch  over  all,  did  not  assume  to  him- 
self. The  Pope's  action  produced  no  effect  at  Constan- 
tinople, but  it  had  some  share  in  determining  the  attitude 
of  his  own  successor  in  the  Papal  chair — Gregory  the 
Great — to  whose  eminent  qualities  is  due  the  rehabilitation 
of  the  Papacy,  and  the  new  start  it  was  enabled  to  take  on 
its  road  to  spiritual  despotism. 


304  THE   PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VIII. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE    FINAL  COLLAPSE   OF   THE    PAPAL    SUCCESSION. 

It  has  been  sufficiently  shown,  that  down  to  the  pontificate 
of  Gregory  the  Great  it  had  proved  impossible  for  the 
Popes  to  establish  even  so  much  as  legal  prescription  in 
the  very  West  itself  for  their  asserted  sovereignty  over 
Christendom;  while  the  whole  tenor  of  Church  history, 
specially  as  regards  the  General  Councils,  proves  to  de- 
monstration that  they  could  never  get  their  possession  of  a 
Divine  and  imprescriptible  charter  of  privilege  acknowledged 
anywhere  by  entire  Churches,  persistently  as  they  pressed  it 
from  the  time  of  Leo  the  Great,  and  often  as  they  seemed  on 
the  point  of  success.  But  the  Papacy  which  Gregory  be- 
queathed to  his  successors  was  a  far  more  powerful  factor 
in  Christendom  than  that  which  he  inherited  had  been. 
From  the  seventh  till  the  fifteenth  century  Rome  was  as 
truly  the  centre  of  European  policy  in  the  civil,  as  well 
as  in  the  religious,  sphere  as  it  had  been  when  still  the 
seat  of  the  empire  of  the  Caesars ;  and  the  newer  theory  of 
its  right  to  govern  the  nations  of  the  world,  or  at  the  least 
to  be  looked  up  to  by  them  as  the  most  august  and  autho- 
ritative spot  upon  the  earth,  bade  fair  to  be  as  influential 
as  that  memory  of  universal  rule  which  went  for  so  much 
in  generating  the  original  sovereign  claim  of  the  Pope, 
less  as  the  alleged  successor  of  St.  Peter  than  as  the  chief 
personage  in  the  city  acknowledged  as  conqueror  and  capital 
of  the  world. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  follow  the  course  of  the  fortunes  ot 
the  Roman  See  henceforth  in  the  almost  unbroken  fashion 
required  for  the  earlier  stages  of  this  inquiry.  It  will 
suffice  to  state  broadly  that  the  authority  of  the  Popes 


CHAP.  VIII.]      COLLAPSE   OF   THE   PAPAL   SUCCESSION.         305 

grew  steadily  greater  as  it  became  more  concentrated  in  the 
West,  and  as  intercourse  with  the  East  became  rarer  and 
more  difficult;  and  that  after  being  advanced  even  further  by 
the  genius  and  daring  of  Nicolas  I.,  Gregory  VII.,  and 
Innocent  III.,  it  culminated  in  the  Bull  Unam  Sanctam  of 
Boniface  VIII.,  which  claims  universal  sovereignty  as  a 
de  fide  right  of  the  Roman  Pontiff.  One  very  noticeable 
factor  in  the  increasing  veneration  for  Rome  itself  as  the 
Holy  City  was  the  falling-off  of  pilgrimages  to  Jerusalem, 
owing  to  the  enormous  increase  which  the  political  changes 
of  the  times  made  in  the  cost,  the  toil,  and  also  in  the 
dangers  of  the  journey.  The  city  which  could  boast  of  the 
tombs  of  the  two  chief  Apostles  naturally  succeeded  to  the 
virtually  vacant  place  of  honour  and  devotion,  and  became 
the  goal  of  devout  visitors,  to  so  marked  a  degree  that  its 
very  name  has  entered  integrally  into  the  words  which 
signify  "pilgrim"  and  "pilgrimage"  in  several  Romance 
languages,  such  as  the  Spanish  romero  and  ro?;ierta,  the 
Portuguese  romiero,  the  Italian  ro7neo,  the  Old  French 
romipete  and  roviieu.  The  greater  the  stress  laid  on  the 
immense  power  of  the  Papacy  in  mediaeval  Europe,  the 
higher  the  claims  put  forward  for  the  dignity  and  privileges 
of  the  Apostolic  See,  the  weightier  are  all  counter- 
balancing facts,  the  more  fatal  all  interruptions  of  the 
new  prescription.  Moreover,  if  the  Petrine  privilege 
followed  the  papal  dynasty,  and  it  only,  it  is  necessary 
to  have  trustworthy  evidence  of  its  regular  transmission 
and  devolution  through  a  legitimate  succession  of  Pontiffs. 
But  the  materials  for  the  history  of  the  early  papacy  are  at 
once  scanty  and  dubious.  The  principal  authority  for  a 
large  number  of  pontificates  is  the  Liber  Pontificalis,  con- 
taining the  lives  of  the  popes  from  St.  Peter  to  Nicolas  I., 
and  going  under  the  name  of  Anastasius  Bibliothecarius,  a 
writer  of  the  ninth  century.  But  we  have  no  clue  as  to 
the  sources  whence  he  drew  his  materials ;  and  Ciampini, 
a  scholar  who  published  a  critical  essay  on  the  Liber  Ponti- 
^calis  in  1688,  rejects  all  but  five  of  the  lives  as  not  being 
the  work  of  Anastasius,  but  of  several  unknown  authors, 

X 


306  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VIII. 

of  whose  credibility  there  are  no  means  of  judging, ^  Nor 
does  it  appear  that  the  defect  can  be  made  good  by  search 
in  the  Vatican  archives,  for  the  learned  work  of  Mgr. 
Marini  concerning  that  collection  throws  no  light  whatever 
on  this  matter,  which  is  thus  shrouded  in  total  uncer- 
tainty. 

And  there  is  a  yet  graver  consideration  than  all  others 
behind.  Let  us  assume  for  a  moment,  though  in  the  teeth 
of  all  Scripture  and  history,  that  the  doctrine  of  the 
Petrine  privilege  is  true,  that  St.  Peter  was  given  infal- 
lible and  sovereign  jurisdiction  over  the  whole  Church 
Catholic,  that  he  was  Pope  of  Rome,  that  he  conveyed 
his  privileges  indefeasibly  to  the  Popes  who  succeeded 
him,  and  that  the  Successor  of  the  Fisherman  is  the 
supreme  ruler  and  teacher  of  Christians,  the  one  Vicar  of 
Christ  on  earth,  whose  single  word  is  the  "living  voice  of 
the  Church,"  infallible  and  paramount.  Even  so,  some- 
thing further  is  essential :  the  Pope  who  claims  these  august 
prerogatives  must  be  Pope  de  jure  as  well  as  de  facto.  Under 
the  Roman  Empire  it  did  not  matter  by  what  title  Caesar 
wore  the  purple,  whether  he  had  made  his  way  to  the 
throne  of  the  world  by  inheritance,  by  election,  by  success- 
ful rebellion,  or  by  murder.  So  long  as  he  could  maintain 
himself  on  his  dangerous  throne,  his  legal  rights  were  un- 
impeachable, his  acts  were  all  civilly  valid,  but  not  for  a 
moment  longer.  Nothing  in  the  least  resembling  the  later 
doctrine  of  the  Divine  right  of  kings  meets  us  in  the  whole 
of  Roman  imperial  history ;  no  parallel  to  English  Jacobitism 
or  French  Legitimism  can  be  found  after  the  overthrow  of 
any  dynasty,  even  when  such  a  regular  transmission  of  the 
Empire  as  a  dynasty  implies  does  occur  for  a  while.  Con- 
trariwise, it  is  an  axiom  of  Latin  theology  and  canon  law 
that  unlawful  possession  of  the  Papacy  confers  no  rights 
whatever,  and  that  all  acts  done  by  one  who  is  Pope  de 
facto  without  being  also  Pope  de  jure  are  null  and  void. 


Examen  Lih'i  Po7iti/icalis,  p.  107. 


CHAP.  VIII.]      COLLAPSE   OF    THE    PAPAL    SUCCESSION.        307 

This  nullity  extends,  of  course,  to  the  institution  of  all 
beneficiaries  within  the  area  of  the  quasi-Pope's  domestic 
jurisdiction,  and  to  the  creations  of  Cardinals.  That  is  to 
say,  a  false  Pope  may  seriously  affect  the  competency  of 
the  electoral  body  which  will  have  to  choose  his  successor. 
When  the  choice  of  the  Popes  lay  with  the  clergy  and 
people  of  the  City  of  Rome,  it  is  plain  that  if  the  majority 
of  the  clergy  at  any  given  time  had  not  been  canonically 
instituted,  they  were  not  competent  electors  in  the  eye  of 
the  law,  and  their  nominee  could  acquire  no  rights  in  virtue 
of  their  votes.  This  is  even  plainer  in  the  case  of  the 
College  of  Cardinals,  as  being  composed  of  persons  whose 
whole  claim  to  their  rank  rests  on  their  nomination  by  the 
Pope.  They  are  not  specially  ordained,  as  bishops  and 
priests  are,  who  may  be  possessed  of  perfectly  valid  orders, 
and  yet  have  no  legal  right  to  a  particular  benefice  or  see ; 
and  they  have  no  shadow  of  claim  to  the  red  hat  or  to  the 
electorate  for  the  Papacy,  unless  the  Pope  who  named 
them  had  full  powers.  And  that  is  not  by  any  means  a 
matter  at  once  satisfactorily  ascertainable,  for  another  maxim 
of  Latin  theology  is  that  any  doubt  as  to  the  rightful  tenure 
of  the  Papal  chair  by  any  claimant  is  to  be  ruled  against 
him,  not  for  him,  as  is  laid  down  expressly  by  Bellarmine, 
who  says  :  "  A  doubtful  Pope  is  accounted  no-Pope."^  This 
includes  all  cases  of  disputed  elections,  whenever  there  is 
not  full  proof  of  the  valid  election  of  the  particular 
claimant  who  ultimately  prevailed ;  for  the  mere  fact  of  his 
having  prevailed  does  not  settle  this  preliminary  question, 
as  it  is  not  pretended  that  the  electors  were  infallible  judges 
of  that  issue.-    The  cases  of  absolute  nullity,  admitting  of 


'  Dubius  Papa  habetur  pro  non-Papa. — De  Condi.,  lib.  ii.  cap.  19, 
sect.  xix. 

'  The  mere  fact  of  an  anti-Pope  claiming  the  Papacy  does  not  make 
the  title  of  the  acknowledged  Pope  uncertain,  but  only  when  a  reason- 
able doubt  arises  as  to  which  candidate  has  been  lawfully  elected. 
What  the  thirty-nine  anti-Popes  who  claimed  the  Papacy  even  before 
the  inextricable  confusion  of  the  Great  Schism  do  prove  is  that  no 
X    2 


3o8  THE    PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VIll. 

no  dispute,  are  these :  Intrusion  by  some  external  influence, 
without  any  election  by  the  constituency ;  election  by  those 
only  who  are  not  qualified  to  elect ;  simony  ;  and  antece- 
dent personal  ineligibility  of  certain  definite  kinds,  such 
as  bastardy.  The  cases  of  highly  probable  nullity  are  those 
of  heresy,  whether  manifest  or  secret,  and  whether  previous 
to  or  after  election  to  the  Papacy.^ 

A  few  citations  in  proof  of  these  positions  must  be 
set  down  in  order  to  show  that  they  are  accepted  prin- 
ciples of  the  Roman  canon  law,  and  not  arbitrary  cavils 
of  hostile  controversialists.  The  species  of  irregularity 
arising  from  some  purely  personal  disqualification  may  be 
left  out  of  account ;  because  in  point  of  fact  its  stringency 
has  been  so  much  impaired  by  incessant  dispensations  that 
it  can  scarcely  be  appealed  to  as  admittedly  effective. 
It  may,  however,  be  remarked  that,  as  a  dispensation  from 
irregularity  must  always  come  from  an  authority  superior 
to  that  of  the  irregular  candidate  for  promotion  to  any 
ecclesiastical  grade,  and  some  forms  of  irregularity  can  be 
dispensed  from  by  the  Pope  alone,  it  follows  that  when 
it  is  the  Papacy  itself  which  is  vacant  and  to  be  filled, 
there  can  be  no  power  lodged  anywhere  in  the  Roman 
Church  to  make  an  otherwise  disqualified  candidate  eligible 
for  that  particular  piece  of  promotion.  For  the  College  of 
Cardinals,  though  they  enter  upon  the  government  of  the 
Roman  Church  during  the  interval  between  the  death  of 
one  Pope  and  the  election  of  his  successor,  do  not  hold 
his  prerogatives  in  commission,  and  cannot  perform  singly 
or  conjointly  any  specifically  Papal  acts,  as,  for  instance, 
the  creation  of  cardinals  or  bishops,  the  confirmation  of 
episcopal  elections,  or  even  the  collation  to  benefices  in 
the  Pope's  gift. 2 

Church  is  so  lacking  in  the  note  of  Unity  as  the  local  Roman  Church. 
It  has  been  the  typical  home  of  schism. 

^  Highly  probable  only,  and  not  absolute  ;  because,  as  the  citations 
show,  while  there  is  a  consensus  of  theologians  and  canonists  on  the 
subject,  there  is  no  express  decree  of  canon  law  to  the  same  effect. 

*  Ferraris,  Bibl.  Canon,  s.  v.  "  Cardinalis." 


CHAP.  VIII.]      COLLAPSE   OF   THE   PAPAL   SUCCESSION.         309 

First,  then,  as  to  the  question  of  forcible  intrusion.  This 
is  governed  by  a  maxim  of  Leo  the  Great,  formally  em- 
bodied in  the  canon  law  by  the  Lateran  Council  under 
Nicolas  II.  in  1059:  "No  line  of  argument  permits  that 
persons  should  be  held  for  Bishops  who  have  neither  been 
elected  by  the  clergy,  nor  desired  by  the  laity,  nor  conse- 
crated by, 'the  comprovincial  Bishops  with  the  assent  of  the 
Metropolitan. "1  The  Lateran  Council  applies  this  to  the  case 
of  the  Papacy,  explaining  that,  as  there  is  no  metropolitan 
superior  over  the  Roman  Church,  the  cardinal  bishops  are 
to  be  accounted  as  discharging  that  function  in  the  election. 
The  case  before  the  Council  was  that  of  John,  Bishop  of 
Velletri,  who  had  been  forcibly  imposed  as  Pope  under  the 
name  of  Benedict  X.  by  the  Count  of  Tusculum,  on  the 
death  of  Stephen  X.,  without  any  election  by  the  Roman 
clergy  and  people.  And  there  is  a  decree  of  Nicolas  II. 
cited  by  Gratian  :  "If  any  one  be  enthroned  in  the  Apos- 
tolic See  without  accordant  and  canonical  election  by  the 
Cardinals  of  the  said  Church,  and  thereafter  by  the 
religious  clergy  of  lower  grade,  let  him  be  accounted  not 
Pope  or  Apostolic,  but  Apostate."  -  Of  course,  in  a  matter 
of  the  sort,  these  utterances  must  be  taken  as  declaratory, 
not  less  than  legislative;  as  retrospective,  not  less  than 
prospective.  They  do  not  limit  themselves  to  enacting 
that  certain  accessions  to  the  Papacy  shall  be  treated  as 
void  for  the  future,  but  lay  down  in  general  terms  that 
they  are  inherently  void. 

It  follows  as  a  necessary  corollary  from  these  premises 
that  none  of  the  clergy  appointed  to  benefices  by  such 
titular  Popes  can  acquire  electoral  rights  in  virtue  of  such 
institution,  unless  some  act  of  indemnity  by  a  competent 


•  **  Nulla  ratio  sinit  ut  inter  episcopos  habeantur,  qui  nee  a  clericis 
sunt  electi,  nee  a  plebibus  expetiti,  nee  a  comprovincialibus  episcopis 
cum  metropolitani  judicio  consecrati.* 

'  ••  Si  quis  Apostolicae  Sedi  sineconcordi  et  canonica  electione  Cardi- 
nalium  ejusdem  ecclesiae,  ac  deinde  sequentium  clericorum  religiosorum, 
inthronizatur ;  non  Papavel  Apostolicus,  sed  Apostaticus  habeatur." 


3IO  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VIII. 

authority  be  superadded  ;  but  from  the  nature  of  the  case, 
no  authority  but  a  lawfully  elected  Pope  is  competent ;  and 
if  at  any  time  the  whole  clerical  electorate,  or  a  working 
majority  of  it,  has  been  canonically  vitiated,  there  can  be 
no  lawful  after-election  made,  and  no  subsequent  validation 
of  the  irregular  tenure. 

Nor  is  intrusion  from  without  the  only  form  of  nullity  in 
this  class.  It  is  a  maxim  of  the  canon  law  that  violent  and 
forcible  entrance  upon  a  benefice,  though  lawfully  acquired, 
voids  it :  "  By  violent  entry  upon  possession  of  a  benefice 
every  one  loses,  through  that  very  act,  the  right  he  has 
thereto,  and  it  becomes  legally  vacant."  ^  This  principle  ex- 
actly applies  to  the  celebrated  case  of  the  disputed  election 
in  A.D.  366,  between  Damasus  and  Ursicinus.  We  do  not 
know,  and  are  never  likely  to  know,  which  of  the  two  was 
canonically  elected,  if  either;  and  it  was  Court  influence,  not 
any  synodical  finding,  which  decided  the  matter  in  favour  of 
Damasus,  whom  the  partisans  of  Ursicinus  never  acknow- 
ledged as  lawful  Pope.  But  it  is  certain  that  Damasus 
entered  on  his  office  by  means  of  violent  rioting  and  homi- 
cide, and  that  twice  over,  and  thereby  forfeited  the  very 
doubtful  right  he  had  acquired  by  an  election  posterior  to 
that  of  Ursicinus.2  And  there  are  parallel  cases  later  in  the 
history  of  the  Roman  See. 

Next  comes  the  nullity  due  to  simony.  It  is  known  to 
us  from  the  epistles  of  St.  Jerome  that  greed  of  money  was 
a  crying  sin  of  the  Roman  clergy  even  in  his  day,  so  that  it 
had  to  be  dealt  with  by  the  civil  law ;  and  though  the  form 
their  covetousness  took  then  was  that  of  endeavouring  to 
extort  deeds  of  gift  and  rich  legacies  from  wealthy  lay-folk, 
it  was  not  long  before  simony  became  habitual ;  so  that  the 
civil  power  was  obliged  to  interfere  with  enactments  to 
check  the  notorious  abuses  attending  every  episcopal  elec- 


'  "  Per  violentam  ingressionem  in  possessionem  beneficii  perdit  quis 
eo  ipso  jus,  quod  ad  illut  habet,  et  vacat  ipso  jure." — Ferraris,  Bid/. 
Canon,  s.  v.  "  Beneficium,"  vii.  20. 

■^  Marcellini  et  Faustinl  Libellus,  inter  opp.  Sirmondi,  vol.  i. 


CHAP.  VIII.]      COLLAPSE   OF   THE   PAPAL    SUCCESSION.         31! 

tion,  and  above  all,  that  to  the  Papal  Chair  itself.  Proof  has 
been  given  of  this  fact  in  the  previous  chapter,  and  need 
not  be  repeated.  But  a  few  citations  of  spiritual  decrees 
on  the  subject  will  be  pertinent : — 

(a.)  "  If  any  Bishop,  or  Priest,  or  Deacon  obtains  this  rank  by 
money,  let  him  be  deposed,  and  his  ordainer  also,  and  be  altogether 
cut  off  from  communion,  as  Simon  Magus  was  by  Peter."  ' 

(d.)  "If  any  Bishop  should  ordain  for  money,  and  put  to  sale  a 
grace  which  cannot  be  sold  ...  let  him  who  is  convicted  of  this 
forfeit  his  own  rank  ;  and  let  him  who  is  ordained  get  no  advantage 
from  the  purchased  ordination  or  promotion,  but  let  him  be  expelled 
from  the  dignity  or  cure  which  he  procured  for  money.  And  if  any 
one  act  as  go-between  in  such  scandalous  and  illegal  transactions,  if 
he  be  a  cleric,  let  him  be  degraded  from  his  rank."  ^ 

(c.)  "Every  Bishop,  Priest,  or  Deacon,  convicted  of  giving  or  re- 
ceiving ordination  for  money,  falls  from  the  Priesthood."  ^ 

{d.)  *' All  crimes  are  accounted  as  nothing  in  comparison  with  the 
simoniacal  heresy."  * 

*'  Ordinations  performed  for  money  .  .  .  we  decide  to  be  null  and 
void."  5 

(e.)  "All  simoniacal  elections  are  void,  even  without  any  formal 
judicial  sentence,  and  though  the  elected  person  may  be  wholly 
ignorant  of  the  facts ;  unless  it  can  be  shown  that  the  simony  has 
proceeded  from  an  enemy,  in  order  to  damage  him.  And  every  person 
simoniacally  elected  is  bound  to  resign,  and  cannot  obtain  absolution 
till  he  has  done  so. "  ^ 

{/.)  "And,  finally,  the  more  accredited  opinion,  that  of  Pope 
Leo.  IV.,  is  that  even  penitence  does  not  avail  for  the  recognition  of 
the  orders  of  simoniacal  clerks,  but  that  their  deposition  is  perpetual 
and  irreparable."  ' 

{^.)  The  Bull  Cum  turn  divino  of  Julius  II.  pronounces  all  simo- 
niacal elections  to  the  Papacy  void,  and  incapable  of  being  validated 
by  any  recognition  accorded  to  the  Pope  as  chosen.  And  Gammarus, 
Auditor  of  the  Rota,  in  his  commentary  on  this  Bull,  alleges  it  to  be 
so  worded  as  to  be  retrospective  in  effect,  fully  voiding  all  such 
former  elections. 


*  Can.  A  post.  xxx. 

'  Cone.  Chalced.  can.  ii. 

^  Cone.  II.  Nicxn.  Epist.  Tarasii  Patriarch, 

■•  Paschalis  Papa,  apud  Gratian,  causa  i.  qu.  7. 

*  Can.  V.  of  Roman  Synod  under  Gregory  VII.  in  1078. 

*  Ferraris,  Bibl.  Canon,  s.  v.  "  Simonia,"  art.  ii. 

T  Van  Espen,y«j  Eccl.  part.  ii.  sect.  iii.  tit.  xiii.  cap.  6. 


312  THE   PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VIII. 

Heresy  is  the  last  form  of  nullity  which  we  need  con- 
sider ;  and  in  respect  of  the  Pope  may  take  three  shapes  : 
heresy  before  his  election,  heresy  after  his  election,  and 
heresy  in  his  formal  definition  of  doctrine.  The  rules 
which  govern  this  flaw  are  as  follows : — 

{a.)  **  Every  heretic,  whether  secret  or  manifest,  incurs  the  greater 
excommunication,  and  also  deposition,  whether  he  be  cleric  or  laic, 
Pope  or  Emperor."  ^ 

{I?.)  "  As  a  dead  man  is  not  a  man,  so  a  Pope  detected  in  heresy 
is  not  Pope  ;  because  he  is  ipso  facto  deposed."  ^ 

(c.)  "The  fifth  opinion  is  therefore  true,  that  a  manifestly  heretical 
Pope  thereby  ceases  to  be  Pope,  as  he  ceases  to  be  a  Christian,  and 
a  member  of  the  body  of  the  Church."  ^ 

As  against  the  cavil  that  this  is  a  purely  hypothetical* 
case,  impossible  of  occurrence,  and  put  forward  only  as  an 
intellectual  speculation  (which  Bellarmine  would  have  us 
believe),  stands  the  saving  clause  in  the  celebrated  canon, 
"  Si  Papa "  in  the  Decretum  of  Gratian,  taken  from  the 
writings  of  St.  Boniface  of  Mentz  (the  most  papalising  of 
early  mediaeval  theologians),  and  claiming  general  irrespon- 
sibility for  the  Pope,  however  culpable  in  his  acts.  It  lays 
down  that  there  is  one  case  in  which  the  Pope  may  be 
called  to  account : 

(d.)  "  In  this  event  let  no  mortal  presume  to  censure  his  faults, 
because  he  who  is  empowered  to  judge  all  is  to  be  judged  by  none, 
unless  he  be  detected  erring  from  the  faith."  * 

And,  apart  from  the  obvious  fact  that  dry  law  does  not  pro- 
vide for  impossible  cases,  here  is  the  significant  comment 
of  the  greatest  of  all  the  mediaeval  Popes,  Innocent  III., 
appended  by  Pithou  in  his  edition  of  the  Corpus  Juris 
Canonici : 


'  St.  Raymond  de  Penaforte,  Summa,  Lit.  de  Hares. 
^  St.  Augustin.  Anconitan.  Summa,  qu.  5. 
^  Bellarmine,  De  Rom.  Pont.  ii.  30. 
"  Decret.  I.  xl.  6. 


CHAP.  VIII.]      COLLAPSE   OF   THE    PAPAL   SUCCESSION.         313 

{e)  ' '  Faith  is  so  especially  necessary  for  me,  in  that  while  I  have 
God  as  my  Judge  for  other  sins,  I  can  be  judged  by  the  Church  for 
that  sin  only  which  is  committed  against  the  Faith."' 

Other  canonists  and  divines  who  have  laid  down  that 
heresy  forfeits  all  Papal  rank  and  privileges  are  Ulric  of 
Strasburg,  Hugo  of  Ferrara,  Peter  de  Palude  (Latin  Patriarch 
of  Jerusalem),  Johannes  Andreae,  William  of  Ockham, 
Antonio  de  Rosellis,  and  Cardinal  Turrecremata.-  It  is  to 
be  noted,  moreover,  that  no  saving  clause  occurs  in  any  of 
these  decisions  to  the  effect  that  a  Pope  who  repents  of  his 
heresy,  and  retracts  it,  is  thereby  reinstated  without  further 
process.  They  speak  of  the  fall  from  the  Popedom  as  final 
and  irreversible.  All  these,  however,  touch  only  the 
question  of  heresy  after  reaching  the  Papal  chair.  But  the 
formidable  Bull  of  Paul  IV.,  C?im  ex  Aposiolatiis  Officio^ 
promulgated  in  1559  (besides  reaffirming  this  same  doc- 
trine in  its  very  first  section,  wherein  it  states  that  "the 
Roman  Pontiff  ...  if  he  be  found  erring  from  the  Faith, 
can  be  convicted ; "  and  also  reviving  the  above-quoted 
decree,  "  Si  Papa,"  in  its  second  section),  takes  a  yet  wider 
sweep,  and  imports  a  fresh  element  of  uncertainty,  in  ad- 
dition to  the  doubt  whether  the  Pope  at  any  given  time 
may  not  be  a  secret  heretic,  and  so  a  mere  delusive  simul- 
acrum, all  whose  acts  are  inherently  null.  The  crucial 
section  runs  thus  : — 

(/)  *'  Adding  that  if  it  should  at  any  time  appear  that  any  Bishop, 
even  ranking  as  Archbishop,  or  Patriarch,  or  Primate,  or  Cardinal  of 
the  aforesaid  Roman  Church,  or  even,  as  already  stated,  Legate,  or 
even  the  Roman  Pontiff  himself,  previous  to  his  promotion  as  Car- 
dinal, or  his  election  to  be  Roman  Pontiff,  has  deviated  from  the 
Catholic   Faith,   or  fallen   into   any  heresy,    his   promotion,    or  his 


*  Serm.  2  de  Consecrat.  Pontif. 

'  See  the  citations  in  Renouf*s  Condemnation  of  Pope  Honoritis ;  and 
the  admission  of  F.  Ryder,  that  such  has  been  a  very  common  opinion 
held  by  very  Roman  theologians,  "and  that  if  a  Pope  could  define 
heresy,  in  so  defining,  he  would  un-Pope  himself." — Contemporary 
Review^  Feb.  1879,  p.  471. 


314  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VIII. 

election,  even  if  by  full  agreement,  and  made  by  the  unanimous 
assent  of  all  the  Cardinals,  shall  be  null,  void,  and  ineffective,  nor 
shall  it  be  capable  of  being  styled  or  becoming  valid  or  legitimate  in 
any  respect,  in  virtue  of  entrance  on  office,  consecration,  subsequent 
possession  of  authority  and  governing  power,  enthronement  or  homage 
as  Roman  Pontiff,  or  obedience  paid  to  him  in  that  character  by  all 
persons." 

A  further  clause  absolves  all  persons  who  have  taken  part 
in  the  election  of  any  once  erring,  heretical,  or  schismatic 
person  as  Pope,  from  every  oath  and  pledge  of  obedience 
they  may  have  taken  to  him  or  to  any  others  coming  within 
purview  of  the  Bull,  directing  them,  contrariwise,  to  treat 
them  as  magicians,  heathens,  pubHcans,  and  heresiarchs, 
and  to  invoke  the  aid  of  the  secular  arm  against  them,  and 
in  favour  of  canonical  claimants,  without  incurring  any 
censures  or  penalties  for  such  action. 

Although  this  remarkable  document  has  no  retrospective 
character,  and  applies  in  its  legal  bearing  •only  to  cases 
arising  after  its  publication,  it  has  a  far  wider  theological 
sweep.  For  it  establishes  as  incontestable  these  two  pro- 
positions, that  Paul  IV.  and  the  thirty-two  Cardinals  whose 
signatures  are  attached  to  the  Bull  did  not  hold  either 
that  the  Cardinals  would  be  divinely  guarded  against 
making  an  invalid  election,  or  that  any  such  grace  is 
inseparably  bound  up  with  the  Papal  office  as  to  confer 
fitness  and  eligibility  upon  an  otherwise  disqualified  candi- 
date. And  yet,  if  infallibility  in  matters  of  faith  be  an 
unvarying  attribute  of  the  Papacy,  it  is  clear  that  antecedent 
and  retracted  error  can  be  no  more  an  obstacle  to  receiving 
that  grace  on  election  and  consecration,  than  repented 
ante-baptismal  sin  is  a  bar  to  remission  of  sins  in  baptism. 
The  Papal  office  and  the  Petrine  privilege  are  thus  asserted 
to  be  separable  ;  and  as  secret  heresy,  unknown  to  all  the 
electors,  and  perhaps  even  forgotten  by  the  candidate  him- 
self, is  enough  to  disqualify,  it  follows  that  there  is  no 
warrant,  on  Ultramontane  principles,  for  a  valid  election  at 
any  time,  or  for  doing  more  than  hope  that  the  actual 
wearer  of  the  tiara  is  Pope  at  all ;    seeing  that  this  Bull  is 


CHAP.  VIII.]      COLLAPSE   OF   THE   PAPAL    SUCCESSION.        315 

an  ex-cathedrd  pronouncement,  and  thus  a  binding  law  in 
the  Roman  Catholic  Church.^ 

Examples  of  nullity  of  all  these  various  kinds  have  been 
cited  in  preceding  chapters  of  this  volume — disputed  elections 
more  than  once,  intrusion  and  simony  together  in  the  case 
of  Vigilius,  heresy  in  those  of  Liberius  and  Zosimus,  and  so 
forth.  But  however  serious  these  were  as  they  occurred, 
and  completely  as  they  demonstrate  that  no  divine  exemp- 
tion of  the  Roman  Chair  from  the  moral  and  legal  vicissi- 
tudes which  have  affected  other  less  eminent  sees  has  been 
vouchsafed,  they  do  not  amount  necessarily  to  entire 
solution  of  continuity  in  the  Petrine  succession,  assuming 
that  to  be  an  historical  and  theological  fact.  It  is  always 
possible  to  contend  that  the  intruded  or  self-deposed  Popes 
must  be  looked  on  as  simple  blanks  in  the  series,  and  their 
reigns  as  interregna,  but  that  the  normal  condition  of 
things  was  restored  upon  the  next  valid  election,  and  that 
the  canonically  appointed  Pope  entered  at  once  on  the 
exercise  of  the  lately  dormant  and  now  revived  privilege  of 
Peter.  But  the  whole  strength  of  this  defence  lies  in  the 
words  "  canonically  appointed,"  and  it  will  be  established 
presently  that  there  has  been  no  canonical  election  to  the 
Papacy  probable  for  a  thousand  years  past,  or  possible  for 
about  four  hundred. 

Personal  depravity  in  a  Pope,  however  gross  and 
notorious,  and  though  .amongst  the  grounds  which  have 
several  times  justified  depositions  from  the  Papacy,  is  not  in 
itself  a  cause  of  legal  nullity.  But  its  frequency  2  and 
enormity  is  a  moral  argument  of  the  weightiest  kind  against 
that  form  of  Ultramontanism  which  makes  the  Roman  See, 


'  It  can  be  seen  in  full  in  the  Appendix  of  Pere  Gratry's  Lettres  h  Mgr. 
Dichamps^  both  in  the  original  edition  and  in  the  English  translation. 

2  Gilbert  Genebrard,  Archbishop  of  Aix  (1537-1597),  in  his  Chrono- 
logia  Sacra ^  sjec.  x.  iv.  (Cologne,  1571),  alleges  that  fifty  Popes  in  a 
hundred  and  fifty  years— that  is,  nearly  one- fifth  of  the  total  number 
till  the  present  time — were  apostates  rather  than  apostolic,  and 
Baronius  {Ann.  897)  is  no  milder  in  his  language.      • 


3l6  THE    PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VIII. 

and  indeed  the  Pope  singly,  to  be  the  whole  Church  in 
microcosm,  or  rather  the  energizing  soul  and  vital  principle 
of  the  Church.  For  it  proves  that  the  mark  of  Holiness, 
one  of  the  Five  Notes  of  the  Church,  has  been  conspicu- 
ously absent  from  the  local  Church  of  Rome. 

The  first  signal  disproof  of  the  Papal  claims  in  the 
period  with  which  we  are  now  to  deal  is  the  alleged  reply 
of  Dinoth,  Abbat  of  Bangor-Iscoed,  at  the  Synod  of 
St.  Augustine's  Oak  in  603  (a  few  months  before  the  death 
of  Gregory  the  Great),  to  the  Roman  missionaries  who 
claimed  the  obedience  of  the  British  Churches  in  virtue  of 
the  Papal  appointment  of  St.  Augustine  as  Metropolitan  : — 

*'  Be  it  known  to  you,  without  any  ambiguity,  that  we  all  and 
singly  are  obedient  to  the  Pope  of  Rome  and  to  every  true  and 
devout  Christian,  to  love  each  in  his  own  order  with  perfect  charity, 
and  to  aid  each  one  of  them  to  become  sons  of  God  in  word  and 
deed.  And  I  know  not  any  other  obedience  than  this  due  to  him 
whom  ye  style  Pope,  nor  that  he  has  a  claim  and  right  to  be  Father 
of  fathers.  And  the  aforesaid  obedience  we  are  ready  to  yield  at 
once  to  him  and  to  every  Christian.  Further,  we  are  under  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  Bishop  of  Caerleon-on-Usk,  who  is,  under  God, 
appointed  to  oversee  us,  and  to  make  us  keep  the  spiritual  path."' 

This  remarkable  speech  is  not  unquestionably  authentic, 
and  is  even  rejected  by  scholars  of  note.  But  it  is 
ancient,  and  even  if  a  mediaeval  invention,  it  does  not 
go  beyond  the  actual  facts  of  the  repudiation  of  Augustine's 
mission  and  authority  by  the  British  Bishops,  and  their 
refusal  to  adopt  any  of  his  proposals,  as  recorded  by  Baeda 
{Eccl.  Hist.  Ang.  i,  ii.  2),  which  cannot,  from  their 
determined  character  and  sweeping  range,  have  been 
couched  in  very  dissimilar  language.  As  it  stands,  it  goes 
even  further  than  denial  of  the  special  supremacy  claimed  by 
the  Popes  over  all  Christendom,  for  it  shows  that  they  were 
not  held  by  its  author  to  possess  so  much  as  Patriarchal  rights 


^  Haddan  and  Stubbs,  Councils  and  Ecclesiastical  Documents ^ycA. 
p.  123 


CHAP.  VIII.]      COLLAPSE   OF   THE    PAPAL   SUCCESSION.  317 

over  the  entire  West.  And  its  value  as  a  legal  statement  is 
enhanced  by  the  absence  of  what  would  certainly  have 
been  forthcoming  at  a  later  date,  namely,  denunciation  of 
such  independence  as  heretical.  St.  Augustine  of  Canter- 
bur}',  undoubted  as  is  his  piety,  was  not  a  man  of  large 
sympathy  or  broad  mind ;  but  was  both  narrow  and 
intolerant  of  diversity  from  the  customs  in  which  he  had 
been  reared.  Nevertheless,  the  only  points  of  deviation 
between  British  and  Roman  usage  upon  which  he  en- 
deavoured to  enforce  conformity  to  the  latter  were  the 
computation  of  Easter  and  the  ceremonial  of  baptism.^  It 
is  clear  from  this  fact  that  then  even  at  Rome  itself  it  was 
not  yet  ruled  doctrinally  that  denial  of  the  Papal  claims  is 
heresy,  for  Augustine's  temper  makes  it  certain  that 
otherwise  he  would  not  have  failed  to  put  the  charge  of 
disobedience  towards  the  divinely  privileged  Head  of  the 
Catholic  Church  in  the  forefront  of  British  sins  against  that 
Church,  instead  of  giving  that  place  to  the  mode  of  reckon- 
ing Easter.  And  the  same  remark  holds  good  even  of 
St.  Wilfrid's  language  at  the  Council  of  Whitby  in  664, 
impassionedly  Roman  as  it  was ;  for  though  he  argued 
against  the  British  computation  of  Easter  as  a  mere  local 
peculiarity,  contrary  to  Catholic  usage ;  as  not  being, 
as  alleged,  conformable  to  the  practice  of  the  Apostle 
St.  John  ;  and  as  opposed,  in  particular,  to  that  of  St.  Peter, 
Prince  of  the  Apostles,  which  he  believed  and  asserted  to 
be  continuously  observed  in  Rome  ;  yet  he  rested  his  case 
not  on  the  inherent  right  of  the  Pope  to  settle  such  matters 
for  all  Christendom,  but  on  the  supposed  historical  fact  of 
unbroken  tradition  in  Rome,  derived  from  St.  Peter,  as  to 
the  true  method  of  reckoning.^ 

But  the  leading  case  in  the  seventh  century  against  the 
Papal  claims  is  undoubtedly  the  ex  cathedra  definition  of 
heresy  by  Pope  Honorius  I.  Reference  has  already  been 
made  to  the  action  of  the  Sixth  General  Council  in  formu- 


Baeda,  H.  E.  ii.  2.  2  Bseda,  H,  E,  iii.  25. 


3l8  THE    PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VIII. 

lating  his  condemnation,  and  to  its  reiteration  for  many- 
centuries  ;  but  the  truth  of  the  charge  was  not  then  proved, 
which  shall  now  be  done. 

The  Monothelite  heresy,  which  first  appears  at  the  outset 
of  the  seventh  century,  is  a  sub-form  of  Monophysism,  and 
is  due  to  a  well-meaning,  but  unwise,  attempt  to  find  some 
new  terminology  whereby  the  Monophysites  might  be 
induced  to  return  to  Catholic  communion.  The  author  of 
this  attempt  was  Sergius,  Patriarch  of  Constantinople, 
misled,  it  would  seem,  by  a  letter  ascribed  to  his  prede- 
cessor Mennas,  about  sixty  years  previous,  and  addressed 
to  Pope  Vigilius,  in  which  it  was  said  that  our  Lord  had 
"  one  will  and  one  life-giving  energy  or  operation."  He 
referred  the  expression  to  Theodore,  Bishop  of  Pharan,  who 
accepted  it  as  orthodox,  whereupon  Sergius  formally 
adopted  it.  Some  years  later,  the  Emperor  Heraclius, 
desirous  of  ending  the  Monophysite  controversy,  which  was 
politically  dangerous  to  the  Empire,  conceived  the  plan  of 
conciliating  the  Monophysites  by  means  of  Monothelite 
explanations  (to  be  offered  by  the  Catholics)  of  the  sense 
to  be  put  on  the  ascription  of  two  natures  to  Christ.  He 
consulted  Cyrus,  Bishop  of  Phasis,  on  the  matter ;  and  Cyrus 
in  turn  laid  it  before  the  Patriarch  Sergius,  whose  reply  was 
that  the  question  of  one  or  two  operations  had  never  been 
formally  decided,  but  that  various  eminent  Fathers  had 
spoken  of  one  operation  only.  This  answer  convinced 
Cyrus,  who  soon  after  became  Patriarch  of  Alexandria,  and 
committed  himself  publicly  to  Monothelism.  The  opposite 
side  was  maintained  by  St.  Sophronius,  who  became  Patri- 
arch of  Jerusalem  in  633,  and  who  had  shortly  before 
endeavoured  to  dissuade  Cyrus  from  the  course  he  was 
taking,  and  finding  that  impossible,  went  to  Constantinople 
to  consult  Sergius,  not  knowing  him  to  be  the  real  author 
of  the  trouble.  But  he  could  get  no  better  terms  from  him 
than  a  promise  to  let  the  controversy  drop  on  both  sides. 
But  when  St.  Sophronius  achieved  his  high  rank,  Sergius, 
feeling  alarm  at  the  influence  he  might  exercise,  wrote  a 
long  letter  to  Pope  Honorius,  setting  forth  his  view  of  the 


CHAP.  VIII.]      COLLAPSE   OF   THE    PAPAL   SUCCESSION.         319 

controversy,  and  asking  him  to  give  his  adhesion  to  himself 
and  Cyrus,  and  against  Sophronius.  Thus  the  matter  was 
pubhc  and  official  in  the  highest  degree,  being  virtually  an 
appeal  from  three  out  of  the  five  Patriarchates  to  a  fourth, 
and  that  the  highest  in  dignity,  to  pronounce  on  a  most 
serious  theological  controversy,  wherein  the  whole  reality  of 
the  Atonement  was  involved. 

In  the  reply  which  Honorius  sent,  he  committed  himself 
definitely  to  the  cardinal  doctrine  of  Monothelism,  saying, 
*'  We  confess  one  will  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ."  ^  And 
he  added,  near  the  close  of  his  letter,  these  further  words, 
"These  things  your  fraternity  will  preach  with  us,  as  we 
preach  them  in  unanimity  with  you ;  "  ~  thereby  making 
common  cause  with  Sergius,  and  identifying  himself  with 
his  teaching.  He  replied  as  Pope,  declaring  what  should 
be  the  teaching  in  the  Western  Church  so  far  as  he  was 
concerned,  and  specifying  that  the  same  teaching  ought  to 
be  followed  in  the  East  also.  Accordingly,  his  Letters 
were  dogmatic  ex  cathedra  decrees  ;  and  they  were  explicitly 
heretical,  for  they  were,  in  fact,  not  only  appealed  to  by  the 
Monothelites  for  half  a  century  afterwards  as  their  mainstay, 
but  also  formed  the  groundwork  of  the  Ecthesis  of  the  Em- 
peror Heraclius,  which  embodied  the  crucial  phrase  already 
cited,  and  was  condemned  as  "  most  impious  "  by  Pope 
Martin  L  in  the  First  Council  of  Lateran  in  649.  It  was 
expressly  as  "dogmatic  epistles"  that  the  letters  of 
Honorius  were  condemned  by  the  Sixth  General  Council, 
and  ordered  to  be  burnt  as  profane  and  hurtful  to  souls — 
the  first  example  in  ecclesiastical  history  of  this  kind  of 
sentence  (Labbe,  Cone.  vii.  978,  ioo6).'^ 


*  **  Unde  et  unam  voluntatem  fatemur  Domini  nostri  Jesu  Christi." 
2  **Haec   nobiscum    fratemitas   vestra    pra^dicet,    sicut    et   nos  ea 
vobiscum   unanimiter  proedicamus"   (Hefele,    Conciliengesch,    b.    vi. 
Append.). 

'  Full  details  of  the  long  controversy  here  summarised  will  be  found 
in  Hefele,  Conciliengesch.  b.  xvi. ;  and  Mr.  E.  F.  Willis's  Pope 
Honorius  and  the  Nezu  Roman  Dogma  (London,  1879)  presents  a 
convenient  analysis  of  it,  as  well  as  a  refutation  of  Pennacchi's  apology 


320  THE    PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VIII. 

Ultramontane  writers,  either  from  having  no  sufficient 
knowledge  of  theology,  or  from  a  fixed  determination  to 
use  what  F.  Gratry  does  not  hesitate  to  qualify  as  "  false- 
hoods "  in  defence  of  the  figment  of  Papal  infallibility,  have 
not  shrunk  from  saying  not  merely  (with  Hefele)  what  is 
conceivable  enough,  that  Honorius  had  no  intention  of 
teaching  heresy,  being  in  truth  neither  logician  nor  theolo- 
gian, and  thus  incompetent  to  meddle  in  an  abstruse  con- 
troversy, but  that  his  epistles  are  "entirely  orthodox."  ^ 
Against  this  wild  assertion  it  will  suffice  to  quote  part  of 
one  sentence  from  Bishop  Hefele  :  "  The  affirmation  that 
the  Letters  of  Honorius  are  entirely  orthodox  is  false."  ^ 

But  the  peculiarity  of  the  case  of  Honorius  is  that  it  is 
equally  destructive  of  the  Ultramontane  position,  whatever 
view  be  taken  of  his  theology.  To  establish  his  entire 
orthodoxy  is  of  absolutely  no  help  ;  because,  in  order  to  do 
so,  it  is  necessary  to  reject  the  three  General  Councils  (as 
counted  in  the  Roman  reckoning),  of  Constantinople  in 
68 1,  Nicasa  II.  in  787,  and  Constantinople  in  869,  all  of 
them  attended  by  Papal  legates,  and  formally  confirmed  by 
Popes  Agatho,  Hadrian  I.  and  Hadrian  II.  themselves 
(instead  of  being  rejected  at  Rome,  as  Canon  XXVIII.  of 
Chalcedon  was  by  Leo  the  Great) ;  in  each  of  which  Hono- 
rius was  condemned  by  name  as  a  heretic,  and  as  a  fautor 
of  heresy,  not  for  mere  supineness.  If  he  was  orthodox, 
then  they,  in  condemning  him,  were  heterodox,  as  was 
also  Leo  IL,  who  condemned  Honorius  anew  thrice  over 
— in  a  letter  to  the  Emperor  Constantine  Pogonatus ;  in 
another  to  the  Spanish  Bishops  (wherein  he  asserts   the 


for  Honorius,  addressed  to  the  Vatican  Council ;  while  separate  points 
are  discussed  in  P.  Gratry,  Lettres  a  Monseigneur  Dechatnps,  and  in 
Mr.  Le  Page  Renouf's  Condemnation  of  Pope  Honorius,  and  The  Case 
of  Pope  Honorius  Reconsidered  (London  :  1868-9). 

'  Manning,  The  Vatican  Council  and  its  Definitions,  p.  223. 
London  :  1870. 

2  '*  Die  Behauptung  .  .  .  die  Briefe  des  Honorius  sind  durchaus 
orthodox  .  .  .  ist  falsch  "  (Conciliengesch.  xvi.). 


CHAP.  VIII.]      COLLAPSE   OF   THE    PAPAL   SUCCESSION.         32I 

damnation  of  Honorius,  "  Sterna  condemnatione  mulctati 
sunt,  id  est,  Theodorus  .  .  .  una  cum  Honorio  " — Labbe, 
Cone,  vii.  1456) ;  and  in  a  third  to  Erwiga,  King  of  Spain, 
— and  Gregory  II.,  who  is  believed  to  have  drafted  that 
profession  of  faith  contained  in  the  Liber  Diurnus,  to  be 
made  by  each  Pope  at  his  coronation,  wherein  Honorius  is 
again  specified  as  a  heretic.  And  so,  for  the  many  centuries 
this  profession  was  made,  every  Pope  had  to  pledge  himself 
to  the  assertion  that  Honorius  had  been  bound  by  sentence 
of  perpetual  anathema,  for  having  added  fuel  to  the  exe- 
crable and  heretical  dogma  of  Sergius  and  the  other 
Monothelites.^ 

There  is  absolutely  no  escape  from  the  dilemma  of 
asserting  either  the  heresy  of  Honorius,  as  a  Pope  under- 
taking to  teach  the  Church  Universal  by  formal  dogmatic 
letters,  or  the  heresy  of  all  those  General  Councils  and 
Popes  that  condemned  him  in  the  most  explicit  terms  as 
a  heretic.  It  is  this  fact  of  his  condemnation,  and  on  such 
grounds,  whether  true  or  false,  which  is  the  keystone  of  the 
whole  matter.  The  most  triumphant  demonstration  of  his 
orthodoxy  would  but  make  matters  worse  for  infallibilism, 
since,  if  he  was  an  Athanasius,  those  other  Popes  have  all 
fallen  like  Liberius.  The  Councils  which  formulated  the 
several  condemnations  could  not  have  believed  in  any 
tenure  of  a  Petrine  privilege  which  empowers  the  Popes 
to  teach  the  Church  Universal,  and  to  be  divinely 
guaranteed  from  error  in  doing  so. 

The  next  salient  example  of  a  flaw  in  the  prescription  for 
the  Petrine  claims  belongs  to  the  ninth  century ;  and, 
though  not  of  so  startling  a  nature  as  the  condemnation  of 
Honorius,  is  nevertheless  in  some  respects  even  more 
adverse  to  the  theory   of  Papal  sovereignty.     For  in  the 


*  "  Auctores  vero  novi  haeretici  dogmatis,  Sergium  .  .  ,  una  cum 
Honorio,  qui  pravis  eorum  assertionibus  fomentum  impendit  .  .  , 
cum  omnibus  haereticis  scriptis  atque  sequacibus,  nexu  perpetui  ana* 
Ihematis  devinxerunt"  {Liber  Diumm^  cd.  De  Rozi^e,  pp.  194-201). 

y 


32  2  THE    PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VIII. 

case  of  Honorius  it  may  at  least  be  said  that  the  censures 
upon  him  proceeded  from  no  authority  inferior  to  that  of 
General  Councils  and  other  Popes ;  and  as  the  Galilean 
school  has  always  held  the  subordination  of  the  Popes  to 
General  Councils,  while  admitting  the  Papal  monarchy  so 
limited,  there  is  room  for  a  modified  assertion  of  some 
Petrine  privilege  as  annexed  to  the  Papacy,  albeit  far  short 
of  personal  infallibility.  But  the  instance  now  to  be  cited 
does  not  leave  room  for  even  so  much. 

The  controversy  upon  image-worship  had  been  decided 
in  Western  Christendom,  by  the  Caroline  Books  and  by  the 
Council  of  Frankfort,  in  a  sense  opposite  to  that  of  the 
Second  Council  of  Nicsea.  But  it  was  still  raging  in  the 
East ;  and  the  extreme  champions  of  images  in  Constanti- 
nople strove  to  prevent  the  question  from  being  reopened 
by  the  Emperor  Michael  II.,  who  desired  to  abate  some  of 
the  more  extravagant  abuses  of  the  cult.  They  asserted 
that  the  State  had  no  right  of  interference  in  such  matters, 
and  that  the  ultimate  decision  rested  with  the  See  of  Rome, 
as  the  supreme  Church  of  Christ  on  earth,  in  which  Peter  sat 
in  the  beginning;  and  moreoverin  a  letter  to  Pope  Paschal  I. 
from  Theodore  the  Studite,  head  of  the  party,  that  Pontiff 
is  styled  "  Prince  of  all  the  priests  of  the  Lord,  supreme 
pastor  of  the  Church,  rock  on  which  the  Catholic  Church 
is  built,  Peter  himself,  and  unpolluted  source  of  Divine 
truth,"  with  other  kindred  expressions.  But  their  value  may 
be  appraised  by  noting  that  in  addressing  the  Patriarch  of 
Jerusalem  for  the  like  purpose,  the  same  Theodore  assures 
him  that  he  is  really  first  of  all  the  Patriarchs,  though  but 
fifth  in  nominal  rank,  and  that  the  supreme  patriarchal 
dignity  must  vest  in  his  See.^ 

The  Emperor,  knowing  that  the  Churches  of  Gaul,  at 
any  rate,  were  not  in  agreement  with  the  Studite  faction, 
sent  an  embassy  to  the  Western  Emperor,  Ludwig  the 
Pious,  in  824,  explaining  his  own  standpoint  as  equally 


*  Baron.  Ann.  818,  i.  ii.  j  817,  xx. 


CHAP.  VIII. J      COLLAPSE   OF    THE    PAPAL    SUCCESSION.         323 

removed  from  the  iconoclasm  of  754  and  the  iconolatry  of 
787  (though  he  made  no  express  mention  of  the  Synods), 
and  asking  his  assistance  to  get  some  satisfactory  com- 
promise arrived  at ;  stating  at  the  same  time  his  intention 
of  sending  his  envoys  to  Rome  also,  to  undo  the  effect  of 
the  misrepresentations  made  there  by  the  Studites.  Ludwig 
consulted  his  clergy,  then  the  most  learned  in  Europe ;  and 
on  their  advice  applied  to  Pope  Eugenius  II.  to  sanction  a 
formal  inquiry  into  the  whole  question  of  image-worship,  to 
be  conducted  by  a  select  commission  of  the  most  learned 
divines  in  France,  who  were  to  examine  the  Scriptures  and 
the  Fathers  to  ascertain  the  mind  of  the  Church,  with  a  view 
to  a  final  settlement  of  the  debate.  The  Pope  assented, 
and  the  Commission  met  at  Paris  in  November,  826, 
sending  in  its  report  not  very  long  after. 

This  remarkable  document  opens  with  a  formal  censure 
of  the  letter  of  Pope  Hadrian  I.  to  Constantine  VI.  and  Irene 
on  behalf  of  image-worship;  and,  though  approving  his 
condemnation  of  the  extreme  iconoclasts,  blames  severely 
his  permission  of  relative  worship  to  images,  his  use  of  the 
term  "holy"  for  them,  and  his  ratification  of  the  Nicene 
canons  of  787.  It  rejects  his  patristic  quotations  as  irre- 
levant and  misleading  ;  and  charges  him  with  having  given 
great  scandal  to  the  faithful,  and  disparaged  the  Pontifical 
dignity,  as  well  as  the  truth  itself,  and  misunderstood, 
through  sheer  ignorance,  the  teaching  of  Gregory  the  Great, 
to  which  he  had  appealed  in  support  of  his  own.  They 
next  proceed  to  deal  in  the  same  stringent  fashion  with  the 
letters  of  Pope  Gregory  II. ;  and  soon  after  add  that  their 
inquiries  had  convinced  them  of  the  great  practical  evils  of 
the  "  pestilent  superstition  "  of  image-worship,  which  they 
viewed  with  much  alarm,  especially  since  the  Popes,  whose 
duty  it  was  to  keep  others  in  the  right  path,  had  themselves 
strayed  far  from  it.  And  they  recommend  the  Emperor 
not  to  throw  the  blame  of  the  condition  of  things  on  the 
Pope  personally,  seeing  that  there  were  others  who  might 
fairly  bear  the  whole  of  it,  and  that  without  scandal  to  the 
Church ;   and  seeing  also  that  the  Pope  might  be  brought 

Y  2 


324  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VIII. 

to  a  sounder  mind  by  study  of  the  extracts  they  had  made 
from  the  Holy  Scriptures  and  the  Fathers,  because  his  See 
itself  is  subject  to  the  precepts  of  Scripture  and  of  the  Holy 
Catholic  Fathers,  and  the  Pope  himself  cannot  be  styled 
Universal  unless  he  combats  with  all  his  might  on  behalf 
of  the  whole  state  of  the  Universal  Church.^  The 
Emperor  Ludwig  took  no  practical  action  upon  the 
report,  but  it  remains  as  a  monument  of  the  freedom  with 
which  a  body  of  private  divines  in  the  ninth  century,  not 
even  synodically  assembled,  held  themselves  at  liberty  to 
sit  in  judgment  upon  formal  Papal  utterances. 

But  the  accession  of  a  Pope  of  genius  and  high  character, 
Nicolas  I.,  a  little  later  in  the  century  (a.d.  858),  nearly  syn- 
chronizing with  the  appearance  of  the  False  Decretals,  to 
which  he  was  the  first  Pope  to  appeal  in  evidence  of  his  claims 
(though  there  is  proof  that  he  knew  nothing  in  860  and  863 
of  their  existence,  for  he  then  stated  what  is  true,  that  the 
Decretal  of  Siricius  is  the  oldest  known.  But  he  quotes 
them  in  864  as  genuine,  necessarily  aware  of  their  fictitious 
character,  as  being  absent  from  the  Roman  archives,  where 
he  alleged  them  to  have  been  long  preserved  with  honour  ),^ 
more  than  won  back  all  the  influence  and  prestige  which  the 
Roman  Chair  had  formerly  enjoyed  in  the  West ;  while  the 
opportunity  afforded  in  the  East  by  the  struggle  between 
the  partisans  of  the  rival  patriarchs  of  Constantinople, 
Ignatius  and  Photius,  together  with  circumstances  which 


^  Baron.  Ann.  825,  vii.-xx. ;  and  more  fully  in  Bouquet,  Hisi.  de 
France,  vi.  338-341.  The  anger  of  Baronius  over  this  report  is 
:  amusing. 

^  Mansi,  Cone.  xv.  695.  See  note  at  the  end  of  this  volume.  It 
■may  be  noted  here  that  the  very  fact  that  it  was  thought  expedient  to 
forge  these  False  Decretals,  and  to  weave  them  into  the  Roman  Canon 
X.aw  (of  which  they  still  form  an  integral,  large,  and  most  important 
portion)  is  in  itself  ample  proof  that  the  claims  made  in  and  by  them 
were  known  in  Rome  itself  to  be  entirely  unwarranted  and  fictitious. 
They  would  have  been  worse  than  superfluous,  had  genuine  testimony 
been  producible. 


CHAP.  VIII.]      COLLAPSE    OF   THE    PAPAL    SLTCESSION.         325 

enabled  the  Pope  to  interfere  in  the  newly  converted 
kingdom  of  Bulgaria,  gave  him  no  little  power  in  that  part 
of  Christendom  also.  Akin  to  Leo  the  Great  and  Inno- 
cent III.  in  mental  vigour  and  in  personal  dignity  of 
character,  akin  to  Gregory  the  Great  in  love  of  justice 
and  in  administrative  capacity,  Nicolas  I.  was  without 
bounds  to  his  ambition  for  the  aggrandisement  of  his  See, 
and  had  no  scruples  as  to  the  means  he  employed  for 
making  it  the  supreme  arbiter  of  Christendom  alike  in  the 
ecclesiastical  and  the  temporal  domain,  a  result  he  so  nearly 
achieved  that  he  stands  out  in  history  as  the  actual  creator 
of  that  Papal  monarchy  which  had  been  only  vaguely 
planned  by  his  most  eminent  predecessors,  who,  more- 
over, had  scarcely  dreamed  of  domination  in  the  civil 
sphere  over  those  sovereigns  whose  subjects  they  were,, 
not  only  in  the  eye  of  the  secular  law,  but  by  their  own  oath^ 
of  allegiance  at  each  accession  to  the  Papacy,  which  they 
took  down  to  the  close  of  the  twelfth  century,  when  Innocent 
III.  in  1 1 98  declared  himself  independent  Lord  Paramount 
over  all  the  Papal  States,  and  was  the  first  Pope-King.  And 
as  Constantinople  was  dwindling  steadily  in  power,  both 
civilly  and  religiously,  from  the  advance  of  Islam  in  the 
East,  and  the  consequent  narrowing  of  the  limits  of  the 
empire,  as  well  as  from  the  decay  of  Oriental  Christianity, 
which  made  the  three  Patriarchates  of  Alexandria,  Antioch,. 
and  Jerusalem  mere  shadows  of  their  past,  there  was  nO' 
possible  rival,  or  even  effectual  check,  left  for  Rome  to- 
fear.  Had  the  tenet  of  the  Petrine  Privilege  been  true,  we 
should  find  the  long  resistance  to  the  Papal  claims  ended 
thenceforth,  and  the  truth  of  all  the  contentions  steadily 
put  forward  by  the  Popes  from  the  time  of  Anastatius  I. 
finally  acknowledged.  But  the  purely  human  nature  of 
the  vast  and  imposing  edifice  is  disclosed  by  the  fact  that, 
when  no  competitor  or  restrainer  was  any  more  to  be 
looked  for,  it  was  ruined  as  a  tenable  theory  by  internal 
dissensions  and  irregularities  in  Rome  itself.  Such  local 
disturbances    had    been    intermittent,   it   is   true,   in  the 


326  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VIII. 

Roman  Church  for  several  centuries,  but  the  evils  were 
never  sufficiently  long-seated  to  be  incurable.  Not  so  in 
the  period  we  have  now  to  consider. 

The  first  episode  of  importance  is  that  connected  with 
the  name  of  Pope  Formosus.  He  had  been  Bishop  of 
Portus,  and  legate  of  Nicolas  I.  in  Bulgaria,  and  was  ex- 
communicated by  two  synods  under  John  VIII.  for  alleged 
misconduct  in  that  capacity,  as  well  as  for  other  offences, 
and  compelled  to  swear  that  he  would  never  return  to 
Rome,  nor  aspire  to  more  than  lay  communion.  The 
next  Pope,  Marinus,  absolved  him  from  both  the  excom- 
munication and  the  oath,  and  restored  him  to  his  See,  though 
still  prohibiting  his  access  to  Rome  itself.  Some  years 
later  Formosus  was  elected  Pope,  though  perhaps  doubt- 
fully, if  a  prior  election  had  already  chosen  Sergius,  a 
deacon  of  the  Roman  church,  who  was  at  the  altar 
awaiting  his  solemn  inauguration  when  the  party  of  For- 
mosus broke  into  the  church  and  forced  him  away.^  For- 
mosus was  then  consecrated  Pope,  and  held  the  dignity 
for  five  years.  His  next  successor,  Boniface  VII.,  sat  but 
fifteen  days,  and  was  followed  in  the  Papacy  by  Stephen 
VI.  He  caused  the  corpse  of  Formosus  to  be  disinterred, 
dressed  in  the  pontifical  robes,  and  put  on  trial  before  a 
synod  for  the  alleged  crime  of  usurping  the  Popedom, 
on  the  ground  that  he  was  canonically  ineligible,  because 
he  was  at  the  time  Bishop  of  Portus,  and  because  no 
bishop  had  ever  been  up  to  that  date  translated  to  the  Papal 
Chair.  He  was  condemned,  stripped  of  his  robes,  three 
fingers  cut  from  his  hand,  the  mutilated  corpse  was  flung 
into  the  Tiber,  and  all  his  ordinations  were  declared  null 
and  void.  A  rising  against  Stephen  proved  successful  a 
few  months  later,  and  he  was  strangled  in  prison.     His 


1  There  is  no  doubt  that  this  did  happen  to  Sergius.  But  the  un- 
decided questions  are  whether  it  happened  once  or  twice  ;  and  if  once 
only,  whether  his  successful  competitor  was  Formosus,  or  John  IX.  at 
a  later  time. 


CHAP.  VIII.]      COLLAPSE    OF   THE    PAPAL    SUCCESSION.        327 

successor,  Romanus,  is  said  by  Platina  to  have  annulled 
all  his  acts  ;^  but  though  this  is  somewhat  doubtful,  there  is 
no  question  that  Theodore  II.,  who  came  next,  during  his 
short  reign  of  three  weeks  reversed  all  the  proceedings 
against  Formosus,  declared  all  his  ordinations  and  other 
acts  legal  and  valid,  and  caused  his  body  to  be  buried  in 
the  Vatican.  John  IX.,  the  next  Pope,  was  not  content 
with  this  measure  of  atonement  to  the  memory  of  Formosus, 
but  convened  a  synod  which  formally  annulled  the  acts  of 
that  held  under  Stephen  VL,  and  ordered  them  to  be  burnt ; 
and  moreover  all  the  ecclesiastics  who  had  taken  part  in  it 
were  obliged  to  confess  themselves  guilty,  and  plead  for 
pardon.  There  is  a  doubt  whether  this  was  not  all  reversed 
again,  and  the  body  of  Formosus  once  more  disinterred 
under  Sergius  III.,  a  Pope  of  the  opposite  faction,  but,  on  the 
whole,  it  is  more  probable  that  Sergius  was  the  chief  agent 
employed  by  Stephen  VI.  in  the  original  outrage,  long 
before  his  own  accession  to  the  Papacy .2  The  importance 
of  this  series  of  events  is  that  they  show  how  completely  the 
Church  of  Rome  was  divided  against  itself,  and  in  what 
direct  contradiction  its  successive  Popes  and  synods  found 
themselves,  at  the  close  of  the  ninth  century,  thus  pre- 
paring the  way  for  the  more  fatal  proceedings  which  soon 
followed.  In  903,  Christopher,  a  priest  of  the  Roman 
Church,  rose  against  Pope  Leo  V.,  a  few  weeks  after  his 


*  The  words  Platina  adds  to  this  statement  are  important :  "  Nil 
enim  aliud  hi  pontificuli  cogitabant,  quam  et  nomen  et  dignitatem 
majorum  suorum  extinp;uere  " — a  charjje  identical  with  that  made  by 
Baionius  against  the  pseudo-Popes  of  the  Pornocracy  {Ann.  908,  iii.). 

2  Auxilius,  the  contemporary  writer  who  tells  us  of  the  annulling  and 
repetition  of  orders  at  this  time  {ordinatio,  exordinatt'o,  et  superordi- 
natio)^  says  that  if  Stephen  and  Sergius  were  right,  there  had  been  a 
break  of  twenty  years  in  the  continuity  of  the  Christian  religion  and 
sacraments  in  Italy,  and  that  nothing  short  of  a  General  Council  could 
clear  up  the  doubt  as  to  the  bishops  and  priests  concerned  {De  Ordinat. 
Formosij  capp.  xxviii.  xl.  apud  Mabillon,  Vetera  Analecta^  pp.  37,  39, 
Paris,  1723).  But  no  such  Council  ever  investigated  the  matter,  and 
the  religious  confusion  of  Rome  at  that  time  has  never  been  cured. 


328  THE    PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VIIK 

enthronement,  threw  him  into  prison,  and  intruded  him- 
self into  the  Papacy.  He  was  in  his  turn  overthrown  and 
imprisoned  by  Sergius  III.,  who  intruded  himself  similarly, 
and  whose  character  is  painted  in  the  blackest  colours  by 
the  chroniclers  of  the  time.  It  is  at  least  certain  that  it 
was  under  his  auspices  that  the  infamous  triad  of  courte- 
sans, the  two  Theodoras  and  Marozia,  obtained  the  in- 
fluence which  enabled  them  to  dispose  several  times  of  the 
Papal  crown.  They,  or  Alberic  of  Spoleto,  son  of  Marozia, 
nominated  to  the  Papacy  Anastatius  III.,  Lando,  John  X., 
Leo  VI.,  Stephen  VII.,  John  XL,  Leo  VII.,  Stephen  VIIL, 
Martin  III.,  Agapetus  II.,  and  John  XII.,  the  last  of  whom, 
a  mere  boy  at  the  time  of  his  intrusion,  was  deposed  for 
various  atrocious  crimes  by  a  synod  convened  by  the 
Emperor  Otto  I.  in  963.  This  whole  series,  as  Baronius 
declares,  consisted  of  false  pontiffs,  having  no  right  to  their 
office,  either  by  election  or  by  subsequent  assent  of  the 
electors,  each  of  them  eager  to  undo  the  acts  of  his  pre- 
decessors, and  choosing  persons  of  the  same  evil  stamp  as 
themselves  for  the  cardinalate  and  other  dignities. ^  And 
the  conclusion  he  most  cleverly  draws  from  the  premisses, 
which  he  is  far  from  concealing  or  minimising,  is  that  the 
Divine  favour  and  protection  were  conspicuously  proved 


*  Baron.,  Ann.  897,  iv. ;  908,  vi.  vii. ;  912,  viii. — especially  this  last 
reference,  which  runs  thus  :  *'  What  was  then  the  aspect  of  the  holy 
Roman  Church?  How  utterly  foul,  when  harlots,  at  once  most 
powerful  and  most  vile,  bore  rule  at  Rome  ;  at  whose  will  sees  were 
exchanged,  bishops  appointed,  and  what  is  awful  and  horrible  to 
hear,  their  paramours  were  intruded  as  pseudo-Popes  into  the  See  of 
Peter,  who  are  not  set  down  in  the  catalogue  of  the  Roman  pontiffs 
except  for  the  purpose  of  fixing  the  dates.  For  who  could  assert  that 
persons  lawlessly  intruded  by  such  courtesans  were  legitimate  pon- 
tiffs? There  is  no  mention  anywhere  of  the  clergy  electing  or 
subsequently  assenting.  All  the  canons  were  thrust  down  into 
silence,  the  decrees  of  Popes  were  strangled,  the  old  traditions  were 
banned,  the  ancient  customs,  the  sacred  rites,  and  the  early  usages  in 
the  election  of  the  Supreme  Pontiff  were  completely  annulled.  And 
what  sort  of  cardinals,  deacons,  and  priests  do  you  suppose  were 
chosen  by  these  monsters  ?  " 


CHAP.  VIII.]      COLLAPSE   OF   THE   PAPAL   SUCCESSION.,     329 

by  the  absence  of  any  schism,  when  a  schism  would  have 
had  so  much  to  assist  it,  and  by  the  speedy  recovery  of  the 
lost  position. 1 

But  the  conclusion  a  canonist  must  draw  is  a  very 
different  one;  namely,  that  if  any  Petrine  succession  or 
privilege  ever  existed  in  the  Roman  Church,  it  was  ex- 
tinguished irrecoverably  at  the  close  of  this  period ;  for  it 
extended  over  sixty  years,  during  which  not  one  lawfully- 
elected  Pope  ascended  the  Papal  Chair.  None  of  them 
could  canonically  appoint  to  any  dignity  or  benefice  in  the 
Roman  Church ;  many  of  them  are  known  to  have  sold 
them.  Consequently,  it  is  certain  that,  at  the  close  of  the 
sixty  years'  anarchy,  not  one  single  clerical  elector  in  Rome 
was  quaHfied  to  vote,  for  not  one  could  show  a  just  title  to 
his  position  ;  and  the  lay  vote,  even  if  it  was  given  at  all^ 
was  invalid  by  itself.  The  election  of  Leo  VIII.  or  of 
Benedict  V.  (whichever  be  accounted  the  true  Pope),  in 
963,  was,  therefore,  void  also;  for  even  if  conducted  in 
due  form,  the  clerical  voters  hj^d  no  status.  And  as  no  act 
of  indemnity  was  ever  passed  by  any  authority  whatsoever — 
leaving  out  of  account  the  very  difficult  problem  of  deciding 
what  authority  would  have  been  competent  for  the  purpose 
— the  defect  has  been  incurable.  It  is  precisely  analogous 
to  a  break  of  two  generations  of  established  bastardy  in  a 
pedigree  by  which  it  is  sought  to  make  good  a  claim  to  a 
peerage.  Failing  the  production  of  some  collateral  heir 
(impossible  in  the  case  before  us),  there  is  no  choice  but 
to  declare  the  family  honours  extinct.  The  Petrine  line,  if 
ever  a  reality,  ended  in  the  tenth  century.  The  later  Popes 
may  just  conceivably  have  been  Bishops  of  Rome  in  some 
canonical  sense  for  a  few  centuries  longer,  though  that  is 
made  highly  improbable  by  causes  yet  to  be  set  down; 
but  if  so,  they  had  no  more  connexion  with  the  older 
line  than  the  Napoleonic  dynasty  has  with  the  Carolingian 
emperors. 

A  second  series  of  intruding  Popes,  who  secured  their 

'  Baron.,  Ann.  912,  ix. 


330  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VIII. 

throne  by  simony,  meets  us  in  the  eleventh  century ;  Bene- 
dict VIII.,  John  XIX.,  Benedict  IX.,  and  Gregory  VI. 
This  Gregory  was  withstood  by  Benedict  and  two  other 
anti-Popes,  and  was  deposed  for  simony  in  the  Council  of 
Sutri  in  1046  ;  and  thus  another  canonical  vacancy  of 
thirty-four  years  was  caused  in  the  Papacy,  enough  (even 
if  the  former  gap  of  sixty  years  had  not  occurred)  to  throw 
the  gravest  doubt  on  the  status  of  the  Roman  electorate 
which  elected  Clement  II.  in  1046;  for  it  is  not  probable 
that  more  than  a  very  small  minority  of  the  voting  clergy 
could  have  held  their  appointments  from  a  date  earlier  than 
the  simoniacal  intrusion  of  Benedict  VIII.  in  1012.  And 
the  statement  of  Bonizo,  Bishop  of  Sutri,  about  thirty  years 
later,!  is  that  the  Germans  charged  the  local  Roman  clergy 
with  being,  almost  to  a  man,  either  illiterate,  simoniac,  or 
immoral;  and  the  second  (for  legal  purposes  the  most 
serious)  count  of  this  indictment  is  amply  borne  out  by  the 
admissions  made  at  the  Synod  of  Rome  in  1047,  wherein 
a  vain  attempt  was  made  to  check  this  crime,^  and  by  the 
indignant  language  of  Pope  Victor  III.  while  still  Abbot  of 
Monte  Cassino.^ 

In  1059  a  great  innovation  on  the  mode  of  electing  the 
Popes  was  introduced  by  Nicolas  II.  in  a  Synod  in  the 
Lateran  at  Rome,  which  transferred  the  right  of  nominating 
the  candidates  for  the  Papacy  and  voting  for  them  to  the 
College  of  Cardinals,  instead  of  the  clergy  and  people  of 
Rome;  and  Alexander  III.  in  1179  enacted  a  canon  that 
any  election  made  by  two-thirds  of  the  cardinals  should 
be  valid.  Nevertheless,  it  was  not  till  the  election  of 
Lucius  III.  in  1181,  that  the  new  regulation  was  carried 
out  so  as  to  exclude  the  old  constituency  from  voting.* 

The  motives  for  the  change  seem  to  have  been  all  good  : 


*  ^telius,  Rer.  Bote.  Script,    ii.  801. 

*  St.  Petri  Damiani,  Epist.  ad.  HenHc.  Ravenn. 

3  Desider.  Montis  Cass.  ap.  Muratori,  Rer,  Ital.  Script,  iv.  396. 

*  Muratori,  Ann.  d' Italia,  vii.  124. 


CHAP.  VIII.]      COLLAPSE    OF   THE    PAPAL   SUCCESSION.       33 1 

to  avoid  the  rioting  and  venality  which  had  too  often  dis- 
credited popular  elections  in  Rome ;  to  insure  certainty  as 
to  the  actual  result  of  the  voting,  by  a  method  which  made 
personation  and  other  electioneering  artifices  impracticable ; 
and  above  all  (now  that  the  dignity  of  Cardinal  was  no 
longer  restricted  to  the  collective  presbytery  of  the  city  of 
Rome,  but  was  conferred  on  representative  prelates  of  all 
the  Latin  Churc*hes,  and  of  the  titular  Oriental  ones  also) 
to  give  a  quasi-oecumenical  character  to  the  election.  In 
fact,  scarcely  any  proof  is  stronger  to  a  canonist  that  no 
universal  jurisdiction  was  attributed  by  the  ancient  Church 
to  the  Roman  Bishopric  than  that  the  election  of  the  Pope 
should  have  been  for  the  first  thousand  years  a  purely  local 
one.  The  maxim,  "  Nemo  invitis  detur,"  would  have  been 
called  into  operation  had  the  remaining  Patriarchates 
thought  for  a  moment  that  the  Roman  clergy  and  people 
could  give  them  a  master  when  they  pleased.  And  though 
the  Imperial  licence  and  consent,  which  formed  an  element 
in  all  Papal  elections  for  many  centuries,  may  be  con- 
ceivably taken  as  standing  for  the  assent  of  all  the  laity  of 
the  Empire,  there  was  no  expression  of  any  kind  provided 
for  the  yet  more  important  vote  of  the  dispersive  clergy. 

Unimpeachable  as  the  new  electoral  scheme  appeared, 
it  dangerously  narrowed  the  constituency,^  and  made  it 
actually  easier  to  tamper  with,  and  even  to  vitiate  and 
disqualify  altogether;  while,  far  from  its  attaining  the 
anticipated  certainty  of  result  and  avoidance  of  double 
returns,  two  remarkable  cases  of  disputed  elections  occurred 
within  a  century.  The  first  of  these  was  at  the  death  of 
Honorius  II.  in  1130.  Sixteen  Cardinals,  who  were  in  the 
late  Pope's  palace,  concealing  the  fact  of  his  death  from  their 
colleagues  and  the  Roman  clergy  and  people,  clandestinely 


*  The  cardinals  were  long  before  normally  even  approximating  to 
their  present  standard  number  of  seventy.  There  were  but  twenty- 
four  alive  when  Pius  II.  was  elected,  thirty-one  at  the  election  of 
Innocent  VIII.,  twenty-seven  at  that  of  Alexander  VI.,  thirty-three 
at  that  of  Leo.  X. — Ciaconius,  Vila  Pontificum. 


332  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.   VIII. 

elected  Cardinal  Gregory  Guidone  ^  on  the  following  day 
by  the  title  of  Innocent  II.  Thirty-two  Cardinals,  with 
the  approval  of  the  whole  body  of  the  Roman  clergy  and 
of  the  nobility,  except  the  Corsi  and  Frangipani,  elected 
Cardinal  Peter  Leonis,  by  the  title  of  Anacletus  II.,  and 
both  were  consecrated  to  the  Papacy  on  the  same  day^ 
Innocent  in  St.  Mary  Major,  and  Anacletus  in  St.  Peter's. 
It  is  indisputable,  as  a  legal  question,  that*under  either  the 
older  or  the  newer  system  of  electing,  Anacletus  was  the 
lawful  Pope ;  but  Innocent  contrived  to  secure  the  help  of 
the  all-powerful  St.  Bernard,  who  induced  the  Emperor 
Lothar  II.  to  lead  an  army  to  Rome,  and  put  Innocent  for- 
cibly into  possession  ;  and  this  imported  another  defect  into 
his  title,  as  noted  above,  although  he  is  reckoned  as  the  lawful 
occupant,  and  Anacletus  as  the  anti-Pope.  The  second 
instance  occurred  after  the  death  of  Hadrian  IV.  in  1159, 
when  there  was  again  a  double  election ;  and  though 
Alexander  III.  had  fourteen  votes  in  the  conclave  of  Car- 
dinals as  against  nine  for  his  competitor,  Victor  IV.,  yet 
the  latter  had  the  whole  body  of  the  Roman  clergy,  and 
the  assent  of  the  great  majority  of  the  laity,  on  his  side ; 
while  the  only  tribunal  before  which  their  rival  claims  were 
tried,  that  of  the  Council  of  Pavia  in  1160,  gave  judgment 
in  his  favour.  It  is  true  that  Alexander's  refusal,  and 
Victor's  consent,  to  recognise  the  authority  of  the  Council 
may  have  gone  far  in  swaying  its  decision  ;  but  the  fact 
that  it  did  so  decide  must  be  held  to  leave  Alexander's 
election  doubtful  at  best.^ 

A  doubt  of  yet  another  kind,  not  hitherto  touched  upon, 
arises  in  connexion  with  the  seventy  years'  session  of  the 
Popes  at  Avignon,  from  1309  to  1379,  often  styled  the 
"  Babylonian  Captivity."     It  is  concerned  with  the  canon- 


^  This  family  was  later  known  as  De  Paparesca,  and  still  exists  as 
the  Mattel. 
^  Labbe,  Cone.  xiii.  265. 


CHAP.  VIII.]      COLLAPSE    OF   THE    PAPAL    SUCCESSION.        ^^^ 

ical  duty  of  residence  at  their  Sees,  imposed  on  all  Bishops ; 
and  as  it  is  obvious  that  the  Avignonese  Popes  did  not 
profess  to  be  Bishops  of  that  city,  nor  to  have  transferred 
to  it  any  of  the  privileges  of  Rome,  their  episcopate  was 
purely  titular,  representing  no  actual  fact,  and  in  particular, 
entirely  dissociated  from  the  local  Roman  clergy  and 
people,  whose  right  to  share  in  Papal  elections,  however 
neglected  and  indeed  over-ridden  in  practice,  was  yet  for- 
mally reserved  to  them  by  the  constitution  of  Nicolas  II. 
It  is  more  probable  than  not,  that  this  protracted  severance 
of  the  Bishops  of  Rome  from  their  See  constitutes  a  fresh 
breach  in  the  succession,  even  had  the  two  huge  gaps 
already  mentioned  been  bridged  over.  For  the  Roman 
contention  is  that  St.  Peter,  by  his  twenty-five  years'  residence 
and  death  in  Rome,  and  by  that  alone — as  no  documentary 
proof  exists — transferred  his  primacy  from  Antioch  to 
Rome,  his  ultimate  residence  being  the  sole  nexus  between 
the  Universal  Primacy  and  the  local  bishopric.  They 
admit  that  he  might  have  fixed  it  in  any  other  Church,  but 
that  by  his  final  residence  in  Rome  he  established  it  for 
ever  there. 

Accordingly,  when  the  Popes  went  to  Avignon,  perma- 
nently resided  there,  and  died  and  were  buried  there,  they 
did  in  regard  to  Rome  precisely  what  St.  Peter  is  said  to 
have  done  in  regard  to  Antioch ;  they  broke  up  the  Roman 
succession,  and  created  a  new  primacy  at  Avignon.  For 
residence  being  an  essential  condition  of  the  episcopate, 
that  condition  failed  utterly  during  the  Avignon  period,  and 
its  resumption  could  not  rehabilitate  the  succession.  The 
Popes  living  in  Avignon  could  no  more  be  considered 
Bishops  of  Rome,  than  St.  Peter  living  in  Rome  could 
be  considered  as  still  Bishop  of  Antioch.  And  Pope 
Benedict  XIV.  says :  "  No  one  who  is  not  Bishop  of  Rome 
can  be  styled  Successor  of  Peter,  and  for  that  reason  the 
words  of  the  Lord  '  Feed  my  sheep '  can  never  be  applied 
to  him"  {De  Synod.  Dioeces.  II.  i.).  Thus  the  Petrine 
principle  is    Ubi  Roma^  ibi  Papa^  whereas,   to  make  the 


334  THE    PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VIII. 

line  of  Avignon  valid,  the  converse  proposition,  Ubi  Papa, 
ibi  Roma^  has  to  be  asserted,  as  it  is  in  fact  by  Ferraris  and 
some  other  Papal  canonists. 

Furthermore,  by  the  canons  of  all  the  Councils,  from 
Nice  I.  to  Trent,  and  from  that  to  the  Bull  of  Pius  IV., 
In  suprema  militafitis  Ecclesice  specula^  every  Bishop,  even 
of  Patriarchal  rank,  is  compelled  to  a  perwnal  residence, 
under  pain  of  deprivation;  the  Popes,  therefore,  as  Bishops 
of  Rome,  and  even  as  Patriarchs,  fall  under  the  universal 
law,  and  the  See  of  Rome  was  ipso  facto  void  during  the 
A-vignon  Papacy.^ 

But  there  is  no  need  to  press  heavily  upon  this  point, 
since  there  is  a  more  serious  flaw  behind — that  due  to  the 
Great  Schism.  From  1379  to  1409,  or  more  strictly  till 
141 7,  two  and  sometimes  three  rival  Popes  disputed  the 
Papacy.  It  is  impossible  to  decide  which  had  the  better 
claim  in  any  case,  and  the  conduct  of  the  Councils  of  Pisa 
and  Constance,  which  undertook  to  settle  the  matter,  does 
but  complicate  it  further.  Thus  every  Pope  within  this 
period  is  doubtful ;  and  the  maxim  of  Bellarmine,  cited 
above,  that  "  a  doubtful  Pope  is  accounted  as  no-Pope," 
bars  any  falling  back  on  the  conjecture  that  one  or  other 
must  have  been  the  true  Pope  in  any  given  year  of  the 
schism^  and  compels  the  rejection  of  all  alike.  Such  was, 
in  fact,  the  decision  arrived  at  both  at  Pisa  and  Constance  ; 
for  the  former  deposed  both  Gregory  XII.  and  Benedict 
XIII.,  electing  Alexander  V.  in  their  place ;  and  the  latter 
deposed  Gregory  and  Benedict  over  again,  and  also  John 
XXIII.,  representative  of  the  new  line  set  up  at  Pisa.  The 
Council  of  Pisa  is  rejected  by  Ultramontanes  on  very  strong 
legal  grounds,  chiefly  that  it  was  not  convened  by  any  com- 
petent authority,  being  merely  summoned  by  the  Cardinals 


*  See  this  whole  question  discussed  at  length  by  the  great  canonist 
Bartholomew  Carranza  de  Miranda,  Archbishop  of  Toledo,  in  his 
treatise  "  De  Residentia  Episcoporum,'*  read  before  the  Council  of 
Trent,  and  printed  in  Le  Plat's  Monum,  Cone.  Ti-id.,  iii.  521-84. 


CHAP.  VIII.]      COLLAPSE    OF    THE    PAPAL    SUCCESSION.        335 

of  the  two  factions  ;  and  that  its  proceedings  were  irregular  in 
themselves,  and  without  due  process  of  law.  But  if  Pisa 
was  no  true  Council,  neither  was  Constance,  for  it  was 
summoned  by  John  XXIII.,  whose  own  title  rests  on  Pisa 
alone,  he  being  successor  to  the  line  of  Alexander  V.  ;  and 
the  mode  of  voting  at  it  was  entirely  novel,  being  by 
nations,  and  others  than  bishops  and  cardinals  being  allowed 
a  vote.  The  two  councils  stand  or  fall  together  (Bossuet, 
Defens.  Declar.  Cleri  Gall.  II.  ix.  12).  What  this  means  in 
law  is  that  there  had  been  no  true  Pope  after  the  death  of 
Gregory  XI,  in  1378  ;  and  therefore  that  all  persons  claiming 
to  be  cardinals  by  any  subsequent  creation  were  mere  pre- 
tenders, without  any  electoral  powers.  The  extreme  Italian 
Papalists  went  much  further,  and  held  that,  as  all  jurisdic- 
tion proceeds  from  the  Pope,  and  invalidly  elected  Popes 
could  not  give  what  they  did  not  themselves  possess,  there 
had  been  no  validly  ordained  bishops  or  priests  after  the 
death  of  Gregory  XL,  and  consequently  all  orders  and 
sacraments  ministered  by  such  persons  were  null  and 
void. 

"After  the  death  of  Gregory  XI.,  of  happy  memory,  no  person 
belonging  to  the  party  of  the  invalidly  elected  Pontiff  has  obtained 
the  priestly  dignity,  nor  can  lawful  sacraments  be  had  from  any  such 
Priests,  seeing  that  the  jurisdiction  for  conferring  priestly  orders  has 
failed.  Consequently,  those  who  are  in  the  obedience  of  a  false 
Pontiff,  though  in  good  faith  and  a  pure  conscience,  if  they  fall  in 
with  any  one  ordained  by  the  new  bishops,  if  they  adore  the  Host 
and  chalice,  will  not  adore  the  Body  and  Blood  of  Christ,  but  the 
mere  substance  of  bread  and  of  wine  mingled  with  water,  as  it  were 
an  idol.'" 

This  theory,  and  the  confirmation  it  derives  in  part  from 
the  rejection  of  both  lines  of  Pontiffs,  rather  than  the  se- 
lection of  either,  by  the  two  Councils,  has  a  very  important 
bearing  on  the  election  of  Martin  V.  at  Constance.     That 


'  Coluccio  Salutato,  Papal  Secretary,  writing  in  1398  to  Jodocus, 
Margrave  of  Brandenbui^  and  Moravia,  apud  Martene  {Thes.  Anecd. 
ii.  1 160). 


336  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VIII. 

election  was  made  by  the  joint  action  of  the  twenty-three 
titular  Cardinals  present,  and  thirty  electors  chosen  by  the 
Council  itself,  six  from  each  of  the  five  nations  represented. 
But  there  was  only  one  Cardinal  then  living  who  had  been 
created  before  the  death  of  Gregory  XL,  and  he  was  that 
very  Peter  of  Luna  who  claimed  to  be  Benedict  XIIL, 
and  refused  to  acknowledge  the  right  of  the  Council  to 
question  his  title,  inasmuch  as  the  submission  of  his  two 
competitors,  Gregory  XIL  and  John  XXIIL,  left  him  the 
only  possibly  valid  Pope.^  Thus  all  the  votes  cast  for  Otto 
Colonna  (Martin  V.)  as  Pope  by  nominal  Cardinals  were 
void  ;  and  it  does  not  appear  how  the  Council  (whose  own 
validity  is  so  gravely  doubtful)  could  create  for  this  one 
turn  a  wholly  new  constituency,  having  no  relation  to  either 
the  ancient  one  of  the  Roman  clergy  and  people,  or  the 
newer  one  of  the  College  of  Cardinals.  If  the  thirty  con- 
ciliar  electors  were  only  assessors  to  the  Cardinals,  they 
effected  nothing,  as  none  of  those  Cardinals  had  a  right  to 
vote  at  all,  and  the  election  is  void  on  that  ground.  If, 
on  the  other  hand,  they  had  a  substantive  vote,  and  in  fact 
made  the  election,  then  they  created  a  wholly  new  Papacy, 
having  no  legal  or  historical  continuity  with  the  older  one, 
and  tracing  back  not  to  St.  Peter  and  his  alleged  Divine 
privilege,  but  no  further  than  the  Council  of  Constance 
itself.2  ^ 

It  might  be  thought  that  so  many  breaches  in  the  Pon- 
tifical succession  would  have  sufficed,  but  yet  another  and 
crowning  one  still  remains  to  be  recorded.  Innocent  VIII. 
was  simoniacally  elected  in  1484,3  and  his  next  successor, 

*  Maimbourg,  Histoire  du  Grand  Schisme  d^Occideni,  ii.  253. 

^  It  is  not  unworthy  of  remark  that  former  elections  of  Popes  had 
been  challenged  as  invalid,  on  the  ground  of  the  elect  not  being  in 
Holy  Orders,  and  that  this  throws  fresh  doubt  on  Martin  V.'s  election, 
for,  though  a  Cardinal,  he  was  not  even  a  Deacon  when  chosen,  but 
was  passed  through  the  three  grades  of  the  hierarchy  on  three  succes- 
sive days,  before  being  consecrated  as  Pope  upon  the  fourth.  Von 
der  Hardt,  Magii.  Cone.  Constant,  iv.  1486-90.  This  contravened 
a  decree  of  Stephen  IV.  in  769. 

'  Creighton,  History  of  the  Papacy^  iii.  14. 


CHAP.  VIII.]      COLLAPSE    OF   THE    PAPAL   SUCCESSION.        337 

the  infamous  Cardinal  Roderic  de  Borgia,  was  elected  in  the 
conclave  of  1492  by  a  majority  of  twenty-two  out  of  the  then 
twenty-seven  Cardinals,  whose  votes  had  been  purchased 
by  Cardinal  Ascanio  Sforza,  as  recorded  by  Von  Eggs,  the 
Roman  Catholic  historian  of  the  Cardinals,  in  his  Pon- 
tificiuin  Dodum  (p.  251)  and  Purpura  Voda,  in  Vita  Card. 
Ascan.  Sforzce^  iii.  251.  As  Pope  Alexander  VI.,  Borgia 
openly  sold  the  cardinalate  itself  to  the  highest  purchasers,^ 
so  that  both  his  own  popedom  and  their  membership  of 
the  Sacred  College  were  all  void  by  reason  of  simony.  But 
Julius  II.  was  elected  in  1503  in  a  conclave  of  thirty- seven 
Cardinals,  of  whom  twenty-six,  or  rather  over  the  two-thirds 
necessary  for  a  valid  choice,  were  of  Alexander  VI. 's  in- 
valid creation,  while  the  same  Cardinal  Sforza  is  known  to 
have  managed  that  conclave  also  in  the  same  simoniacal 
fashion  as  the  previous  one.-  And  Leo  X.  was  elected  in« 
15 13  in  a  conclave  consisting  entirely  of  Cardinals  created 
by  either  Alexander  VI.  or  Julius  II.,  and  therefore  in- 
competent to  elect.  And  Leo  repeated  the  crime  of  Alex- 
ander VI.  in  selling  the  cardinalate  ;  while,  finally,  Clement. 
VII,  was  simoniacally  elected  in  1523.^ 

The  electoral  body  was  thus  utterly  vitiated  and  disN 
qualified  by  Canon  Law  at  least  so  far  back  as  1513,  and  no 
conceivably  valid  election  of  a  Pope  has  taken  place  since 
that  of  Sixtus  IV.,  in  147 1,  even  if  every  defect  prior  to  that 
date  be  condoned,  and  it  be  conceded  that  the  breaches  in 
the  tenth,  eleventh,  and  fifteenth  centuries  were  made  good 
somehow. 

There  has  not  been  any  retrospective  action  taken  in 
regard  to  this  final  vitiation  by  simony ;  and  to  Alexander 
VI.  belongs  the  responsibility  of  having  made  any  assertion 
of  unbroken  and  canonical  devolution  of  a  Petrine  privilege 
in  the  line  of  Roman  Pontiffs  impossible  for  any  honest 
canonist  or  historian  since  his  time.  And  consequently, 
not  only  have  the  specific  Divine  privileges  alleged  to  be 

*  Guicciardini,  Istor.  cP  Italia^  v. 
^  Palatii,  Fasti  Cardinalitim. 
^  Guicciardini,  Istor.  (T  Italia^  xv. 
z 


338  THE  PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VIII, 

attached  to  the  person  and  office  of  the  Roman  Pontiff 
all  utterly  failed,  but  the  whole  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction 
appertaining  to  or  derived  from  the  See  of  Rome  has  failed 
throughout  the  entire  Latin  obedience.  All  acts  done  by 
the  Popes  themselves,  or  requiring  Papal  sanction  for 
validity,  since  1484  (just  thirty-three  years  before  the  out- 
break of  the  Lutheran  revolt),  have  been  inherently  null 
and  void,  because  emanating  from  usurping  and  illicit 
Pontiffs,  every  one  of  whom  has  been  uncanonically  in- 
truded into  the  Papal  Chair  by  simoniacal  or  merely  titular 
electors,  having  no  legal  claim  to  vote  at  all.  Those  orders 
and  sacraments  in  the  Latin  Church  which  depend  on  the 
valid  succession  of  the  dispersive  episcopate  and  priest- 
hood may  continue  unimpaired,  but  all  that  is  distinctively 
Papal  died  out  four  centuries  ago,  and  continues  now  as 
a  mere  delusive  phantom. 

The  defence  set  up  on  the  Ultramontane  side  against 
this  proof  that  the  Papacy  has  ceased  to  exist  as  a 
de  jure  institution,  is  that  the  mere  fact  of  recognition  and 
acceptance  of  an  invalidly  elected  Pope  by  the  Roman 
Church  at  large  suffices  to  make  good  all  defects  and  to 
validate  his  position.  But  this  is  in  the  teeth  of  all  the  legal 
facts.  For  (i)  there  is  no  such  provision  to  be  found  in 
the  Canon  Law,  which  could  not  omit  so  important  a  legal 
principle,  did  it  exist;  (2)  no  opportunity  of  expressing 
either  assent  or  dissent  is  afforded  to  the  dispersive  Roman 
Church,  seeing  that  the  election  in  conclave  is  not  con- 
ditional but  final,!  and  the  result  is  publicly  signified  at 
once  in  words  denoting  that  the  new  reign  has  begun ;  (3) 
the  absence  of  any  schism,  or  any  public  challenge  of  the 
title  of  any  one  of  the  thirteen  intruded  Popes  between 
903  and  963,  is  legally  equivalent  to  acceptance  of  them  all 
by  the  dispersive  Roman  Church,  but  Baronius  is  most 
precise  in  denying  their  status ;  and  (4)  there  are  Bulls  of 
Julius  II.  and  Paul  IV.  which  categorically  contradict  this 
assertion,  in  that  they  enact  that  no  recognition,  homage, 

*  Ferraris,  Prompta  Bibliotheca,  s.v.  Papa^  art.  i.,  n.  61, 


CHAP.  VIII.]      COLLAPSE   OF   THE   PAPAL   SUCCESSION.         339 

cr  obedience  shown  to  an  invalidly  elected  Pope  shall 
avail  to  legitimate  his  status,  when  his  disquaHfication  has 
been  either  simony  or  heresy.^ 

The  only  plea  which  can  be  set  up  in  defence  of  the 
Ultramontane  theory  is  that  of  begging  the  whole  question, 
and  saying,  "  As  it  is  certain  that  St.  Peter  did  receive  the 
privileges  of  infallibility  and  sovereign  jurisdiction  over  the 
whole  Church,  and  that  he  conveyed  and  transmitted  them 
indefeasibly  to  the  Popes  of  Rome,  who  are  his  successors, 
it  is  necessary  to  believe  as  matter  of  faith,  in  despite  of 
any  seemingly  adverse  testimony,  that  God  took  care  that 
the  gates  of  hell  should  never  prevail  against  His  Church, 
and  that  the  succession  on  which  all  true  jurisdiction 
depends  has  been  preserved  unimpaired  amidst  all  the 
troubles  and  dangers  which  have  beset  it." 

This,  of  course,  does  not  meet  the  difficulty  at  all ;  and 
the  truer  way  of  regarding  the  question  is  to  say,  "  If  God 
have  indeed  attached  such  inestimable  privileges  to  the 
Papal  Chair,  and  if,  as  all  theologians  and  canonists  agree, 
the  occupant  of  that  chair  must  be  validly  elected  in  order 
to  exercise  them,  then  we  shall  find  on  inquiry  that  the  line 
has  been  regular  and  undisputed  from  the  first ;  that  no 
doubt,  and,  above  all,  no  invalidity,  attaches  to  any  one  of 
those  reckoned  in  the  succession.  And  the  superabundant 
proof  that  such  is  not  the  case,  that  actually  no  See  in  the 
whole  world  has  so  many  flaws  of  the  gravest  kind  in  its 
pedigree,  none  has  ever  sunk  morally  so  low  and  so  often 
in  the  person  of  its  pontiff's,  is  the  final  disproof  of  the 
Petrine  claims,  as  a  mere  human  legend,  destitute  of  any 
Scriptural,  legal,  or  historical  basis." 

The  remarkable  weakness  of  the  line  of  Papal  succession 
can  be  most  clearly  exhibited  in  a  chronological  table  of 
the  flaws  in  legitimate  transmission  of  the  Chair,  which  are 
precisely  analogous  to  failures  of  proof  of  regular  descent, 
or  actual  proofs  of  bastardy,  in  a  family  pedigree  on  which 
titles  and  estates  depend.     Their  number  may  be  usefully 

*  Cum  tarn  divino  and  Ex  Apostolatus  officio, 
Z  2 


340  THE    PETRINE   CLAIMS.  [CHAP.  VIII. 

contrasted  with  the  two  intrusions  (Stigand  and  Tillotson), 
and  the  one  doubtful  election  (Pole)  in  five  hundred  years 
of  the  See  of  Canterbury.  It  is  to  be  remembered  that 
intrusion  and  simony  are  absolute  disqualifications,  heresy 
an  almost  equal  one,  and  that  all  questions  of  doubt,  either 
where  the  result  of  an  election  has  been  reasonably  ques- 
tioned, or  invalidity  may  attach  to  the  election  itself,  are 
ruled  against  the  claimant  by  Bellarmine's  maxim,  "  A 
doubtful  Pope  is  counted  no-Pope."  All  persons  reckoned, 
whether  justly  or  unjustly,  as  anti-Popes,  are  excluded  from 
the  following  table ;  and  merely  legendary  stories,  such  as 
that  of  Pope  Marcellinus's  apostasy,  and  rigidly  technical 
objections,  such  as  apply,  for  instance,  to  the  orthodoxy  of 
Nicolas  I.,  and  to  the  election  of  Gelasius  II.,  are  omitted 
also ;  so  as  to  state  the  case  for  the  prosecution  as  mode- 
rately as  possible.  The  names  in  Roman  letters  mark  the 
highly  doubtful  Popes,  those  in  italics  the  certainly  invalid 
and  irregular  ones. — See  Table  (p.  343). 

The  Electoral  College  of  Cardinals  was  completely 
vitiated  by  simony  under  Alexander  VI. ;  and  thus,  even  if 
it  could  be  conceded  that  the  Papacy  was  saved  somehow 
through  former  irregular  transmissions,  or  was  validly  re- 
constituted by  the  Council  of  Constance,  there  has  been 
by  Roman  Canon  Law  no  de  JureVo'^o.  since  1484  at  latest, 
consequently  no  de  jure  Cardinal  created,  and  thus  no  means 
exist  on  Ultramontane  principles  for  restoring  the  Petrine 
succession  ;  though  a  General  Council  of  the  Latin  Church 
might  probably  set  up  a  new  and  canonically  valid  episcopate 
in  the  See  of  Rome,  but  with  no  shadow  of  claim  to  any 
Divine  charter  of  privilege,  nor  any  heirship  to  St.  Peter. 

To  sum  up  :  The  points  successively  raised,  and  (it  is  sub- 
mitted) proved,  in  the  foregoing  inquiry,  are  as  follows  : — 

I.  That  the  claim  to  teach  and  rule  the  Church  Uni- 
versal, as  of  privilege,  in  virtue  of  a  special  inheritance 
from  St.  Peter,  made  on  behalf  of  the  Popes  of  Rome, 
does  not  satisfy  any  one  of  the  seven  conditions  required 
by  Roman  Canon  Law  in  all  cases  of  privilege. ^     For, 

^  See  antey  chapter  i.,  p.  6. 


CHAP.  VIII.]      COLLAPSE   OF   THE    PAPAL    SUCCESSION.         341 

{a)  No  document  constituting  them  such  heirs,  and 
annexing  the  privilege  to  the  inheritance,  is  producible,  or 
so  much  as  thought  to  have  ever  existed. 

{b)  The  document  alleged  as  conferring  this  privilege 
upon  St.  Peter  himself  is  not  certain  and  manifest  in  word- 
ing for  this  purpose,  but  obscure  and  enigmatic  ;  so  as  to 
have  been  diversely  interpreted  from  the  earliest  to  the 
latest  time  since  its  promulgation. 

{c)  When  strictly  and  literally  construed,  it  contains  no 
express  gift  of  either  teaching  or  ruling  authority ;  which 
accordingly  cannot  be  legally  read  into  it. 

{d)  It  is  exclusively  personal  in  wording,  and  is  there- 
fore limited  to  St.  Peter  singly. 

{e)  It  contains  no  clause  contemplating  or  empowering 
its  extension  to  any  other  person  than  St.  Peter. 

(/)  The  interpretation  actually  put  upon  it  by  Ultramon- 
tanes  denies,  interferes  with,  and  encroaches  upon,  the 
rights  and  privileges  of  all  other  Patriarchs,  Metropolitans, 
and  Bishops  of  the  Church  Universal.^ 

ig)  It  has  been  habitually  exercised  with  excess  and 
abuse,  and  has  thus  been  long  since  forfeited,  assuming 
that  it  ever  existed. 

II.  Holy  Scripture,  construed  as  a  legal  document  ten- 
dered in  evidence  of  the  Petrine  claims,  not  only  fails  to 
corroborate,  but  directly  contradicts,  them. 

III.  The  Liturgies,  as  evidence  of  the  mind  of  whole 
Churches,  and  remounting  to  remote  antiquity,  recognise  no 
supreme  authority  as  vesting  in  St.  Peter  himself,  not  to 
say  any  persons  claiming  to  inherit  from  him. 

'  Thus,  not  merely  do  the  Vatican  decrees  assert  that  the  Pope  has 
direct  and  immediate  jurisdiction  in  every  diocese  of  the  Church  Uni- 
versal ;  but  in  the  course  of  the  debates  it  was  alleged  that  bishops 
are  merely  the  Pope's  officials ;  and  one  of  the  cardinals,  speaking  to 
a  French  priest  about  the  letter  of  censure  addressed  by  the  Pope  to 
the  Archbishop  of  Paris,  said  : — "Just  consider  the  monstrosity,  this 
Archbishop  dares  to  speak  of  rights  which  belong  to  him.  What 
would  you  say  if  one  of  your  lackeys  were  to  talk  of  his  rights  when 
you  gave  him  your  orders?"  —  Letters  of  Quin'nus,  xlvi.,  last 
sentence. 


342  THE   PETRINE   CLx\IMS.  [CHAP.  VIII. 

IV.  The  great  majority  of  the  eminent  Fathers  of  the 
Church  interpret  the  three  great  Petrine  texts  in  St.  Mat- 
thew xvi.,  St.  Luke  xxii.,  and  St.  John  xxi.,  in  a  sense  con- 
trary to  the  Ultramontane  gloss  ;  and  thus  make  that  gloss 
untenable  by  Roman  Catholics,  who  are  bound  to  interpret 
Scripture  only  "according  to  the  unanimous  consent  of 
the  Fathers." 

V.  The  Canons  and  Decrees  of  the  undisputed  General 
Councils  of  the  Church,  and  those  of  a  large  number  of 
provincial  and  other  local  Councils,  down  to  the  middle  of 
the  fifteenth  century,  are  wholly  incompatible  with  any  be- 
lief in  the  Petrine  Claims  having  been  currently  received 
throughout  the  Church,  i 

VI.  The  Acts  (as  distinguished  from  the  formulated 
decrees)  of  the  Councils,  those  of  many  Popes  and  of 
many  eminent  Fathers,  are  incapable  of  being  reconciled 
with  the  Petrine  Claims. 

VII.  No  trustworthy  or  even  probable  evidence  is  addu- 
cible  for  the  fact  that  St.  Peter  was  ever  Bishop  of  Rome. 

VI IT.  Not  only  is  the  case  for  a  Petrine  Privilege 
destroyed,  but  the  breaks  in  the  chain  of  prescription  are 
so  numerous  and  serious  as  to  make  it  impossible  to 
establish  the  Petrine  Claims  on  that  basis. 

IX.  Even  if  there  ever  had  been  a  Petrine  succession, 
with  devolution  of  the  Petrine  Privilege,  in  the  See  of 
Rome,  it  has  been  entirely  annulled  and  voided  by  demon- 
strable and  incurable  flaws,  so  that  no  valid  Pope  has  sat 
for  more  than  four  centuries,  or  can  be  secured  in  the  future 
by  any  now  existing  machinery  in  the  Church  of  Rome. 


^  It  may  be  added  here  that  the  Papal  interpretation  of  the  words 
*'  Whatsoever  thou  shalt  bind,"  &c.,  was  challenged  on  behalf  of  the 
English  Church  at  the  Council  of  Constance,  in  a  petition  officially 
presented  by  Richard  Ullerston.  Herein,  after  disputing  the  restriction 
of  the  power  of  bin-ding  and  loosing  to  St.  Peter  and  his  successors,  he 
adds  the  following  interesting  sentence:  "Quod  utinam  quidem 
crebro  allegantes,  non  tamen  in  toto  intelligentes,  non  allegarent  in 
contumeliam  legis  Christi." — Von  der  Hardt,  Magn.  Cone.  Const. y 
I.  p.  27,  page  114. 


CHAP.  VIII.]      COLLAPSE   OF    THE   PAPAL   SUCCESSION.        343 


Name  of  Pope. 

Date. 

Nature  of  defect. 

Authority  for  fact. 

Victor  I. 

193-202 

1  Heresy ' 

Tertullian,      Adv. 

or  Zephyrinus 

202-219 

Prax,  i. 

Callistus  I. 

219-224 

Heresy 

St.  Hippolytus, 
Ref.  Hcer.  ix.  6, 

Liberius 

352-367 

Heresy 

St.  Jerome,  Chron. 
ann.  357  _ 

Felix  II. 

367 

Heresy  and  in-  \ 
valid  election/ 

St.  Athanasius,  Ad 

Monachos. 

Damasus  I. 

367-385 

Disputed       elec- 

Marcellin.et Faust. 

tion,  and  homi- 

Libellus. 

cidal    entrance 

on  see 

Zoslmus 

417,418 

Heresy 

His  Letter  acquit- 
ting Pelagius  and 

^ 

Cselestius 

Boniface  I. 

418-423 

Disputed       elec- 
tion,   and    for- 
cible   entrance 
on  see 

Baronius,  ^«w.4i9 

Hormisda 

511-523 

Heresy 

His  Letter  to  Pos- 
sessor, Baronius, 
Ann.  520,  xvi.- 
xviii. 

Boniface  II. 

530-532 

Disputed       elec- 

Cassiodorus,   Var. 

tion,    and    pro- 

ix. 15 

bable  simony 

John  II. 

532-535 

Probable  simony 

Idem,  ibid. 

Vigilius 

540-555 

Intrusion  and  si- 

Liberatus, Breviar. 

mony 

xxii. 

Pelagius  I,    • 

555-559 

Intrusion 

Anastasius,  Biblio- 
thec. 

Honorius  I. 

626-640 

Heresy 

His  Letters,  burnt 
at  Sixth  General 
Council 

Eugenius  I. 

655-657 

Intrusion  "^ 

Anastasius,  Biblio- 
thec. 

'  The  reference  is  not  to  the  Pope's  temporary  encouragement  of 
Montanism,  as  to  which  TertuUian's  wishes  may  have  deceived  him, 
but  to  complicity  with  the  Sabellian  teaching  of  Praxeas,  a  wholly 
distinct  charge. 

'  There  was  no  moral  guilt  in  this  case,  and  the  intrusion  was 
condoned  ;  but  it  is  a  legal  flaw  all  the  same. 


344 


THE   PETRINE   CLAIMS. 


[chap.  VIII. 


Name  of  Pope. 

Date. 

Nature  of  defect. 

Authority  for  fact. 

Sergius  I. 

687-701 

Simony ' 

Anastasius,  Biblio- 
thec. 

Eugenius  II. 

824-827 

Disputed  election 

Anastasius,  Biblio- 

thec. 
Baronius 

Formosus 

891-896 

Doubtful  election 

Botiiface  VI. 

896 

Intrusion 

Baronius 

Stephen  VI. 

896,  897 

Intrusion 

Baronius 

John  IX. 

89&-900 

Disputed  election 

Flodoard 

Cht-istopher 

903,  904 

Intrusion 

Baronius 

Sergius  III. 

904-911 

Intrusion 

Baronius 

Anast alius  III. 

911-914 

Intrusion 

Baronius 

Latido 

914 

Intrusion 

Baronius 

John  X. 

914-929 

Intrusion 

Baronius 

Leo  VI 

929-931 

Intrusion 

Baronius 

Stephen  VII. 

931 

Intrusion 

Baronius 

John  XL 

931-933 

Intrusion 

Baronius 

Leo  VIL 

936-939 

Intrusion* 

Baronius 

Stephen  VIIL 

939-943 

Intrusion 

Baronius 

Martin  III. 

943-946 

Intrusion 

Baronius 

Agapettis  11. 

946-955 

Intrusion 

Baronius 

/ohn  XII. 

955-963 

Intrusion 

Baronius 

Leo  VI 1 1. 

963-965 

Disputed  election 

Liutprand 

Benedict  V. 

964,  965 

Disputed  election 

Liutprand. 

Benedict  VIIL 

IOI2-1024 

Intrusion  and  si- 

Desider Cassin. 
-  Radulphus 

John  XIX. 

I033-IO46 

mony 
Intrusion  and  si- 

Benedict IX. 

1033- 1046 

mony 
Intrusion  and  si- 

Glaber. 

mony 

Gregory  VI. 

I 044- I 046 

Simony 

Acts  of  Council  of 
Sutri 

Benedict  X. 

1058- 

Simony 

Leo    Ostiensis,    1. 

iii.  c.  8. 
Arnulf.  Lexov.  De 

Innocent  II. 

II30-II43 

Disputed  election 

Schism. 

Alexander  III. 

II59-I181 

Disputed  election 

Acts  of  Council  of 
Pavia 

^  This  was  rather  technical  than  actual  simony.  The  money  was 
not  paid  to  secure  election,  but  was  extorted  by  the  Exarch  after  the 
election,  as  the  price  of  the  necessary  civil  sanction. 

^  There  was  an  interregnum  of  three  years  between  John  XL  and 
Leo  VII. 


CHAP.  VIII.]      COLLAPSE   OF   THE    PAPAL   SUCCESSION.         345 


Name  of  Pope. 

Date. 

Nature  of  defect. 

Authority  for  fact. 

Hadrian  V. 

1276 

Only  a  deacon- 

Raynaldus 

Boniface  VIII. 

I 294-1 303 

Doubtful  election^ 

Raynaldus 

Clement  V. 

I305-I314 

Simony                      Raynaldus                 | 

John  XXII. 

I316-I334 

Heresy  and  Non- 

Raynaldus,       ann. 

residence. 

1331-34 

Benedict  XII. 

I334-I342 

Non-residence        j 

Raynaldus 

Clement  VI. 

I342-I352 

Non-residence        |  Raynaldus                 j 

Innocent  VI. 

I352-I362 

Non-residence 

Raynaldus 

Urban  V. 

I362-I370 

Non-residenee 

Raynaldus 

Gregory  XI. 

1370-I378 

Non-residence 

Raynaldus 

Urban   VI. 

I378-I389 

Doubtful  election 

1 

(Rome) 

Clement   VII. 

I378-I394 

Doubtful  election 

(Avignon) 

Boniface    IX. 

I 389-1404 

Doubtful  election 

(Rome) 
Benedict  XIII. 

I394-I409 

Doubtful  election 

Maimbourg,  His- 
toire  du  Grand 

(Avignon) 
Innocent  VII. 

I404-I406 

Doubtful  election 

\      Schisfne  d' Occi- 
dent 

(Rome) 

Gregory    XII. 

I406-I409' 

Doubtful  election 

(Rome) 

Aleicander  V. 

1409,  I4IO 

Doubtful  election 

John  XXIII. 

I4IO-I415 

Doubtful  election 

and  heresy 

Martin  V. 

141 7-143 I 

Irregular  election 

Von     der     Hardt, 
Magn.          Cone. 
Const. 

Innocent  VIII. 

I484-I492 

Simony 

Raynaldus,       ann. 
1484,  28,  31 

'  He  was  a  dying  man  when  elected,  and  did  not  live  long  enough 
for  consecration.  But,  as  he  made  some  important  changes  in  the 
mode  of  electing  the  Popes,  it  is  clear  that  he  was  fully  Pope  without 
being  successor  to  any  episcopate  of  St.  Peter. 

'  The  doubt  arises  from  the  questionable  validity  of  the  abdication 
of  his  predecessor,  Celestine  V.,  which  created  the  vacancy;  and 
Boniface's  title  was  challenged  in  his  lifetime  on  that  ground,  nor 
has  Ihe  doubt  ever  been  authoritatively  cleared  up. 


346 


THE   PETRINE   CLAIMS. 


[chap.  VIII. 


Name  of  Pope. 

Date. 

Nature  of  defect. 

Authority  for  fact. 

Alexander  VI. 

I492-1503 

Simony 

Von    Eggs,    Pur- 
pura Doda,  iii. 

Julius  II. 

1503-1513 

Simony 

251 

Palatii,  Fasti  Car- 
din. 

Palatii,  Fasti  Car- 
din. 

Giucciardini,  Istor. 
d'  Italia,  xv. 

LeoX. 
Clement  VIL 

1513-152I 
1523-1534 

Invalid  election 
Simony 

No 

valid  election  has  been  possibl 

2  since. 

THE   FALSE   DECRETALS.  347 


NOTE   ON  THE  FALSE  DECRETALS. 

(5^^  A  324.) 

There  is  one  salient  difference  between  the  conception  of  ecclesi- 
astical law  as  entertained  in  Oriental  and  Latin  Christendom.  In  the 
East,  nothing  was  at  any  time  accepted  as  law  save  what  had  been 
formally  enacted  by  councils,  and  those  large  ones.  But  in  the  West 
it  was  the  aim  of  the  Popes  of  Rome,  from  an  early  time,  to  attribute 
equal  authority,  and  to  secure  the  like  acceptance,  for  their  own 
injunctions,  whether  colourably  validated  by  their  local  synod,  or  issued 
on  their  single  responsibility.  Thus  there  grew  up  a  body  of  Pontifical 
law  side  by  side  with  the  Synodical  law,  and  carefully  fused  therewith, 
or  made  to  override  it.  This  pontifical  law  was  for  the  most  part 
embodied  in  formal  epistles,  usually  addressed  as  Rescripts  in  reply  to 
some  bishop  who  had  applied  for  advice  on  some  moot  point  ;  at  first, 
most  probably,  only  to  such  bishops  as  belonged  to  the  suburbicarian 
provinces,  but  later  to  prelates  in  no  respect  under  Papal  jurisdiction  ; 
and  as  these  epistles  were  worded  as  decrees,  and  were  intended  to 
carry  with  them  the  same  authority  as  the  canons  of  Councils,  they 
were  styled  Decretals.  As  the  papal  power  increased,  it  was  thought 
expedient  to  manufacture  a  long  prescription  for  these  Decretals,  and 
to  extend  as  widely  as  possible  the  range  of  subjects  with  which  they 
were  concerned.  And  this  was  fully  effected  by  the  forgery  of  the 
False  Decretals,  which  issued  from  the  school  of  Boniface  of  Mentz, 
and  were  first  published  by  one  Isidore  Mercator,  or  Peccator  (there 
is  some  uncertainty  as  to  the  agnomen)  about  the  year  850,  being  at 
once  accepted  at  Rome,  and  made  a  part  of  the  body  of  pontifical 
law.  It  has  been  argued,  now  that  the  spuriousness  of  these  documents 
is  allowed  on  all  hands,  that  the  Pope  and  the  Roman  Curia  were  as 
much  deceived  as  eveiy  one  else,  and  were  not  to  blame  in  the  matter 
of  this  reception.  But  the  reply  is  conclusive:  (i)  there  were  ample 
means  at  Rome,  far  more  than  anywhere  else,  for  detecting  the  fraud, 
chiefly  in  that  no  documents  of  the  kind  were  in  the  Roman  archives, 
precisely  where  attested  copies  must  have  been  enrolled,  had  they  been 
genuine ;  (2)  the  Roman  Church  had  much  interest  in  promoting  the 
fraud  ;  (3)  nothing  has  been  done  up  to  the  present  moment  to  with- 
draw any  part  of  these  forgeries  from  the  Canon  Law,  into  which  they 
are  now  interwoven,  far  less  to  abate,  not  to  say  renounce,  any  pre- 
tension based  on  them  as  its  original  warrant. 

Some  account  of  the  subject-matter  of  these  Decretals  will  usefully 
illustrate  much  already  put  before  the  reader.     The  first  part  consists 


348  THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS.. 

of  about  sixty  epistles  of  Popes,  beginning  with  St.  Clement  {circ. 
A.D.  95),  and  ending  with  Melchiades  (a.d.  314),  and  for  the  most 
part  professedly  addressed  to  all  the  bishops  of  the  Church  Universal. 
The  epistles  ascribed  to  St.  Clement  are  ancient  forgeries,  but  all  the 
remainder  are  the  work  of  Isidore. 

I.  The  first  epistle  of  Clement  to  St.  James  of  Jerusalem,  with  which 
the  series  begins,  contains  the  following  propositions  :  (a)  St.  Peter 
is  the  foundation  of  the  Church  ;  {b)  In  the  presence  of  the  whole 
Roman  Church  he  ordains  Clement  its  bishop  as  his  own  successor,  and 
makes  over  his  chair  of  preaching  and  teaching  to  him  ;  (c)  and  also 
his  special  'power  of  binding  and  loosing,  so  that  whatever  Clement 
decreed  on  earth  should  be  ratified  in  heaven ;  [d)  Resistance  to 
Clement,  clothed  with  this  authority,  is  rebellion  against  God  ;  {e)  in 
virtue  of  his  new  powers,  Clement  prepares  to  consecrate  and  give 
mission  to  bishops  for  Gaul,  Spain,  Germany,  Italy,  and  other 
countries  of  the  West,  whither  St.  Peter  had  not  already  sent  them, 
and  directs  James  to  do  the  like  in  the  East  ;  (/)  and  also  to  parcel 
out  the  territory  under  him  into  patriarchal,  primatial,  metropolitan, 
and  episcopal  jurisdictions,  in  an  ascending  scale  of  rank,  "  because 
not  even  amongst  the  apostles  was  there  parity,  but  one  was  above 
all  the  others";  {g)  appeals  were  to  lie  to  the  metropolitans,  and 
from  them  to  the  patriarchs  ;  {h)  the  laity,  even  those  of  princely 
rank  and  power,  are  to  obey  the  clergy ;  (?)  and  the  clergy  cannot 
be  lawfully  tried  before  lay  tribunals ;  {j)  nor  can  any  ecclesiastic 
be  called  to  account,  or  put  on  his  trial,  by  his  inferiors,  unless  he 
err  from  the  Faith. 

The  First  Epistle  of  Anacletus,  after  ruling  that  each  province 
shall  have  its  own  judges,  and  that  suits  are  to  be  conducted  where  they 
arose,  and  not  carried  elsewhere,  adds :  "  But  if  more  difficult  questions 
should  arise,  be  they  judgments  of  bishops  and  magnates,  or  suits  of 
much  importance,  if  there  be  an  appeal,  let  them  be  referred  to  the 
Apostolic  See.  For  the  Apostles  enjoined  this,  by  order  of  the 
Saviour,  that  greater  and  more  difficult  questions  should  always  be 
referred  to  the  Apostolic  See,  upon  which  Christ  built  the  Church 
Universal." 

The  Third  Epistle  of  Anacletus  states  that  "  this  sacrosanct  and 
Apostolic  Roman  Church  did  not  obtain  its  primacy,  or  acquire  its 
eminence  of  power,  over  all  Churches  and  the  whole  flock  of  the 
Christian  people,  from  the  Apostles,  but  from  our  Lord  and  Saviour 
Himself.  ...  If,  then,  any  more  difficult  cases  arise  amongst  you, 
refer  them  to  the  supreme  tribunal  (apiceni)  of  this  Holy  See,  that  they 
may  be  terminated  by  the  Apostolic  judgment,  because  such  is  the 
Lord's  will,  and  so  He  has  appointed.  For  this  Apostolic  See  has 
been  made  the  hinge  and  head  of  all  Churches  by  the  Lord  Himself, 
and  no  other  ;  and,  as  a  door  is  guided  by  the  hinge,  so,  through  the 
Lord's  institution,  all  Churches  are  guided  by  the  authority  of  this 
Holy  See." 


NOTE   ON   THE    FALSE    DECRETALS.  349 

The  Second  Epistle  of  Sixtus  I.  declares  that  whoso  disobeys  the 
decrees  of  the  Holy  See  works  his  own  destruction. 

The  First  Epistle  of  Hyginus,  decreeing  that  no  Metropolitan  shall 
hear  causes  without  the  assessorship  of  comprovincial  bishops, 
makes  the  exception,  "  Saving  the  privilege  of  the  Roman  See  in  all 
things"' ;  thus  asserting  the  right  of  the  Pope  to  sit  as  judge  without 
assessors. 

The  Epistle  of  Soter  alleges  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the  Pope,  if  he 
learns  that  anything  wrong  is  done  in  any  of  the  Churches,  to  inter- 
pose without  delay  for  its  correction.  This  extends  the  claim  to  hear 
appeals  into  the  larger  demand  of  direct  and  immediate  jurisdiction  of 
first  instance  in  all  dioceses. 

The  Epistle  of  Eleutherius  enacts  that  as  it  is  impracticable  to  refer 
all  ecclesiastical  suits  to  the  Apostolic  See,  only  cases  which  have 
been  decided  by  bishops  shall  be  referred  thither,  to  be  decided  by  its 
authority,  in  conformity  with  the  rules  laid  down  by  the  Apostles ; 
and  that  no  promotions  or  ordinations  in  any  Church  may  take  place 
prior  to  a  decision  on  the  matter  at  Rome. 

The  first  Epistle  of  Victor  I.  lays  down  that  any  bishop  accused  or 
condemned  by  the  bishops  of  his  province  shall  have  an  appeal  to  the 
Pope,  who  may  try  the  case  in  person  or  by  his  vicars ;  and,  while 
the  cause  is  pending,  no  other  bishop  can  be  put  in  his  see,  because, 
though  it  is  lawful  for  the  comprovincial  bishops  to  inquire  into  the 
presentment  against  an  accused  bishop,  yet  it  is  not  permitted  them 
to  decide  the  case  without  consultation  of  the  Pope  of  Rome. 

The  Epistle  of  Zephyrinus,  repeating  this  decree,  adds,  as  a  further 
reason  for  its  original  enactment  by  the  Apostles,  over  and  above  the 
privilege  of  Peter,  that  the  Church  of  Rome  is  the  Mother  of  all 
Churches,  and  it  is  thus  her  right  to  receive  appeals  and  calls  for  help 
from  all,  that  they  may  be  nourished  from  her  breasts  and  defended 
by  her  authority,  since  a  mother  cannot,  and  should  not,  forget  her 
child. 

The  First  Epistle  of  Fabian  alleges  that  the  duty  incumbent  on  the 
Pope  to  oversee  all  Churches,  makes  it  necessary  that  every  Church 
should  know  what  is  the  usage  of  the  Holy  Roman  Church,  that  they 
all,  as  her  true  children,  may  follow  the  example  of  their  Mother. 

The  Second  Epistle  of  Cornelius  forbids  any  appeal  of  bishops  out- 
side their  province,  except  to  the  Roman  See. 

The  Epistle  of  Lucius  alleges  that  the  Roman  Church,  by  a  peculiar 
grace,  never  has  erred,  and  never  will  err,  from  the  path  of  Apostolic 
tradition,  and  is  the  Mother  of  all  Churches,  so  that  it  is  the  Pope's 
special  function  and  duty  to  teach  all  Christian  people. 

The  Second  Epistle  of  Marcellinus,  addressed  (as  several  other  false 
decretals  are)  to  all  the  Bishops  of  the  East,  alleges  that  a  legation 
from  them  had  recently  come  to  Rome  to  receive  a  Papal  edict  for  their 
guidance  ;  and  the  present  letter  is  now  sent  them  as  a  brief  summary 
of  what  the  Pope  had  then  been  pleased  to  order^  lest  the  members  of 


35©  THE    PETRINE   CLAIMS. 

the  legation  should  have  made  any  mistakes  in  reporting  it  upon  their 
return,  whether  from  forgetfulness  through  the  lapse  of  time  in  the 
long  journey,  or  any  original  misunderstanding  on  their  own  part. 

The  First  Epistle  of  Marcellus,  addressed  to  the  IJishops  of  the 
province  of  Antioch,  tells  them  that  they  are  bound  to  adhere  to  the 
teaching  of  blessed  Peter,  their  first  teacher,  and  not  to  abandon  their 
father,  who  is  Head  of  the  whole  Church.  For  his  See  was  originally 
at  Antioch,  but  by  the  Lord's  command  was  transferred  to  Rome. 
Accordingly,  they  must  keep  to  the  path  thus  marked  out  for  them, 
and  are  in  all  respects  to  obey  that  See  to  which  by  Divine  grace  all 
important  cases  are  to  be  referred,  even  as  it  is  there  they  really  began. 
And  if  even  Antioch,  once  the  first  of  all  Sees,  has  had  to  yield  to 
Rome,  much  more  are  all  others  subject  to  its  jurisdiction,  and  all 
bishops  are  entitled  to  appeal  to  it  as  the  Head,  attd  to  obtain  from  it 
protection  and  deliverance,  just  as  it  is  thence  they  derive  their  in- 
struction and  their  consecration. 

And  it  was  also  decreed  at  the  same  time  by  the  Apostles  through 
Divine  inspiration  that  no  synod  should  be  held  without  the  authority 
of  the  Apostolic  See,  and  that  no  Bishop  could  be  tried  for  any  offence 
whatsoever  except  in  a  legitimate  Synod  convoked  at  a  fitting  time  by 
Apostolic  authority  ;  because  there  is  no  doubt  that  all  Episcopal 
judgments  and  other  matters  of  the  first  class  can  be  conducted  and 
terminated  only  by  the  authority  of  the  Holy  See  ;  so  that  all  pro- 
vincial affairs  are  to  be  reviewed  by  the  authority  of  the  Holy  Uni- 
versal See,  if  it  pleases  the  Pope  so  to  command.  Nor  may  recourse 
be  had  by  those  of  one  province  to  the  bishops  and  clergy  of  another 
province  without  the  previous  sanction  of  the  Apostolic  See. 

The  Epistle  of  Melchiades  alleges  that  the  Lord  reserved  to  Himself 
the  right  of  judging  bishops,  whom  He  willed  to  be  the  eyes  and 
pillars  of  the  Church,  and  that  He  made  over  this  privilege  to  the 
blessed  key-bearer  Peter  exclusively  in  His  stead.  And  this  pre- 
rogative of  Peter  has  rightly  come  by  succession  to  his  See,  to  be 
inherited  and  possessed  for  all  time  to  come ;  because,  there  was 
some  distinction  of  power  amongst  the  blessed  Apostles,  and  though 
their  election  was  alike,  yet  it  was  granted  to  blessed  Peter  that  he 
should  take  precedence  of  the  others,  and  wisely  decide  all  matters 
among  them  which  had  occasioned  disputes,  contentions,  or  question- 
ings. And  that  this  was  ordained  so  by  God's  ordinance,  in  order  that 
no  one  in  time  to  come  should  claim  to  manage  all  matters,  but  that 
for  all  time  the  more  important  pleas,  such  as  those  of  bishops  and 
other  weighty  suljjects  of  concern,  should  come  together  to  one  place 
only — the  See  of  blessed  Peter,  prince  of  the  Apostles — that  they 
might  receive  the  final  decision  from  that  place  whence  they  had 
derived  the  origin  of  their  appointment,  so  that  they  might  never  be  at 
variance  with  their  head. 

Many  of  th(Si  assertions  recur  over  and  over  again  in  different 
decretals,  often  in  the  same  words,  and  the  text  **  Thou  art  Peter," 


NOTE  ON   THE    FALSE   DECRETALS.  351 

etc.,  is  frequently  cited  as  their  justification  and  proof;  but  it  is  un- 
necessary to  give  more  than  specimens. 

The  second  part  of  the  False  Decretals  consists  of  Papal  decrees 
of  the  period  between  Sylvester  (314-336)  and  Gregory  II.  (715-731), 
of  which  thirty-nine  are  spurious,  and  of  the  acts  of  several  Councils 
which  are  quite  unauthentic.  It  opens  with  the  Donation  of  Con- 
stantine,  wherein,  after  declaring  that  the  authority  of  the  Vicar  of 
Christ  is  superior  to  the  Imperial  power  and  dignity,  he  decrees  that 
the  Popes  of  Rome  for  all  time  are  to  have  precedence  and  authority 
over  the  four  other  principal  Sees,  Antioch,  Alexandria,  Constanti- 
nople, and  Jerusalem,  and  over  all  other  Churches  throughout  the 
world. 

Amongst  the  spurious  synods  is  one  at  Rome  under  Pope  Sylvester, 
coincidently  with  the  Council  of  Nice,  wherein  the  Pope  by  his 
apostolical  authority  reinstated  in  their  Sees  a  number  of  bishops  who 
had  been  deprived,  whether  by  ecclesiastical  or  civil  action.  A 
spurious  correspondence  between  St.  Athanasius  and  Pope  Mark  repre- 
sents the  former,  in  union  with  all  the  Egyptian  bishops,  addressing 
the  Pope  as  holding  the  Apostolic  and  Universal  See,  and  makes  St. 
Athanasius  profess  entire  obedience  to  him  ;  and  the  Pope  in  his  reply 
asserts  the  inerrancy  of  the  Roman  See  in  matters  of  faith,  as  a  con- 
sequence flowing  from  the  clause  of  the  Petrine  charter  in  St.  Luke 
xxii.  31-32.  A  letter  of  Pope  Julius  I.  to  the  Eastern  bishops  claims 
for  the  Roman  See  the  right  of  convoking  General  Councils  and  of 
deciding  all  episcopal  causes,  in  right  of  a  privilege  granted  in  the 
Gospel,  and  also  by  the  Apostles  and  the  canons  of  synods  alleges 
that  the  Roman  Church  is  higher  and  greater  than  all  other  Churches, 
and  obtained  its  sovereign  rank  not  merely  from  the  decrees  of  canons 
and  Fathers,  but  from  the  very  words  of  the  Lord  Himself  spoken  to 
St.  Peter ;  so  that  it  is  Head  of  all  Churches  precisely  as  Peter  was 
Head  of  all  Apostles,  and  by  the  same  direct  institution  of  the  Lord  ; 
consequently  nothing,  great  or  small,  could  be  lawfully  done  anywhere 
in  the  Church  without  the  advice  and  co-operation  of  the  Bishop  of 
the  Roman  Church.  Accordingly,  all  bishops  are  to  remember  that 
the  one  way  for  them  to  avoid  all  error  of  belief  or  action  is  to  take 
the  rule  of  their  observance  from  that  See  of  blessed  Peter  whence 
their  own  rank  is  derived,  and  which  is  not  only  the  Mother  of  their 
priestly  dignity,  but  also  their  mistress  in  all  ecclesiastical  procedure. 

Another  rescript  of  Pope  Julius  to  the  Oriental  bishops  who  had 
taken  part  in  the  condemnation  of  St.  Athanasius  has  appended  to  it 
a  number  of  decrees  thrown  into  the  form  of  canons,  and  inclusive  of 
clauses  making  the  See  of  Rome  the  supreme  court  of  appeal,  having 
also  direct  jurisdiction  in  all  provinces,  and  the  right  of  rehearing  all 
causes  by  its  vicars,  and  especially  of  reviewing  the  acts  of  provincial 
synods,  as  also  of  being  the  only  tribunal  with  a  right  to  condemn 
and  deprive  bishops.  St.  Athanasius  is  represented  as  appealing  to  Pope 
Irtberius  for  his  support  against  Arianism,  on  the  ground  that  it  is 


352  THE   PETRINE   CLAIMS. 

owing  to  his  teaching  and  that  of  the  Roman  See,  to  which  all  peoples 
resort,  that  the  orthodox  faith  prevails.  And  Liberius  replies  to  his 
"son"  Athanasius  that,  since  he  has  himself  received  such  steadfast- 
ness of  faith  from  the  very  beginning,  derived  from  blessed  Peter, 
Prince  of  the  Apostles,  as  to  have  authority  to  defend  the  true  faith 
on  behalf  the  Church  Universal,  he  will  act  for  and  with  him  as  a 
father  for  his  children. 

Another  forged  letter  from  St.  Athanasius  to  Pope  Felix  II.  states 
that  a  canon  was  unanimously  enacted  in  the  Council  of  Nice  that  no 
council  could  be  held,  and  no  bishop  condemned,  without  the  assent 
of  the  Pope  of  Rome  ;  and  that  another  unanimous  decree  provided 
that  any  bishop  who  had  reason  to  suspect  the  impartiality  of  his 
Metropolitan  or  the  comprovincial  bishops  assembled  to  try  him, 
might  appeal  to  the  Holy  See  of  Rome,  to  which  the  power  of  bind- 
ing and  loosing  is  committed  above  all  others  by  special  privilege 
granted  by  the  Lord.  "For  thou  art  Peter,  as  the  Divine  Word 
truthfully  attests,  and  upon  thy  foundation  the  pillars  of  the  Church — 
that  is,  the  bishops,  who  uphold  the  Church  and  are  bound  to  bear  it 
on  their  shoulders, — are  there  established,  and  to  these  He  committed 
the  keys  of  the  kingdom  of  Heaven,  and  publicly  enacted  that  thou 
shouldst  bind  and  loose  with  power  whatsoever  is  in  earth  and 
Heaven."  And  the  reply  of  Felix  entirely  corresponds  to  this  decla- 
ration of  Roman  privilege. 

So  much  will  suffice  to  exhibit  the  general  tone  and  object  of  the 
False  Decretals,  which  revolutionised  the  polity  of  the  Western  Church, 
and  which  were  formally  embodied  in  the  Canon  Law  (of  which  they 
had  for  centuries  practically  formed  a  large  effective  factor)  in  respect  of 
all  their  legislative  matter  by  Pope  .Gregory  IX.,  under  the  editorship 
of  St.  Raymond  de  Pennaforte,  in  1234.  They  are  the  sole  basis  and 
justification  of  those  claims  and  exceptional  powers  asserted  by  the 
Roman  Chair,  which  culminated  in  the  Vatican  decrees  of  1870. 


INDEX. 


S   A 


INDEX.    \ 


Aaron,  21 

Abraham,  21 

AcaciusofCP.,95,  107,  251,  253, 
255,  264,  277,  280,  282,  283 

Accenietie,  252,  292 

Acquittal,  Synod  of  the  Incon- 
gruous, 269 

Aetiusof  CP.,  241 

Aetius  the  Prefect,  227,  230  n. 

Africa,  Church  of  North,  209,  211, 
214,  295,  300,  302 

African  Canons,  214,  ^; 

Agapetus  I.,  Pope,  289,  294,  298 

Agapetus  II.,  Pope,  328,  344 

Agatho,  Pope,  83,  114,  115,  116, 
118 

Agilulf,  King,  302  n. 

Alberic,  son  of  Marozia,  328 

Albertus  Magnus,  St.,  79  n. 

Alexander  III.,  Pope,  330,  332, 

344 
Alexander  V.,   Pope,    120,    123, 

335.  345 
Alexander  VI.,  Pope,  337,  346 
Alexandria,    Church  of,    65,    93, 

102,  103,  235,  237,  258 
Alexandria,  Council  of,  196 
Allies,  Rev.  T,  VV.,  221  n. 
Allnatt,  Mr.,  140  n. 
Alypius  of  Tagaste,  97,  103  n. 
Amalasuintha,  Queen,  288,  295 
Ambrose,  St.,  75,  82,  84,  86,  167 
Ambrosian  Missal,  67 
Anacletus    I.,    Pope,    176,    182, 

185,  192,  193,  346 
Anacletus  II.,  Anti-Pope,  332 


Anastasius    the    Librarian,     ri7, 

186,  305 
Anastatius,   Emperor,    271,    272, 

277,  280,  283 
Anastatius  II.,  Pope,  263 
Anastatius  III.,  Pope,  32S,  344 
Anatolius  of  CP.,  235,  237,  239, 

243,  246 
Andrew,  St.,  19,  20 
Andrew  of  Thessalonica,  255 
Anicetus,  Pope,  126 
Ante-Nicene    evidence     on     the 

Petrine  texts,   71-74;    on    St. 

Peter's  Roman  episcopate,    175 

-181 
Anthinuis,  297,  29S 
Antioch,  Canons  of,  159 
Antioch,   Church   of,  66,    69  n., 

102,  103  n.,  185  n.,  213,  235, 

237,  258 
Antioch,    Councils   of,    93,     104, 

141,  158,  196 
Anti-Popes,  307  n. 
Antitypes  in  Gospels,  16 
Antonina,  299 
Apiarius,  97,  98 

Apostles,  equality  of  their   com- 
mission, 13,  15,  71,  134 
Apostolical  Canons,  92,  196 
Apostolical  Constitutions,  66,  73, 

178,  179,  187,  192,  194,  199 
Apostolic  See,  title  of,  103  n. 
Appeals  to  Rome,  97,   139,   146,. 

150,    162-3,   167-8,    208,  212. 

217,  218,  224,  249,  291 
Appellate  Jurisdiction,  93,  252^^ 


2   A   2 


356 


THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS. 


Aquileia,  Patriarchate  of,  300,  302 

Aquinas,  St.  Thomas,  83 

Aratus  of  Carthage,  95 

Arian  Controversy,  148,  159,  296 

Aries,  Church  of,  216 

Aries  I.,  Council  of,  150,  196 

Armorica,  290 

Arnobius,  177 

Ascholius  of  Thessalonica,  167 

Athalaric,  King,  288,  289,  295 

Athanasius,   St.,    155,    158,    159, 

161,  167,  168,  351,  352 
Augustine    of    Canterbury,     St., 

316,  317 
Augustine  of  Hippo,  St.,  77,  83, 

84,  86 
Aurelian,  Emperor,  141 
Aurelius  of  Carthage,  214 
Auxiliarius,  229 
Auxilius,  327  n. 
Avignon,  Papacy  at,  332 
Avitus  of  Vienne,  270 

Barylon,  57,  58 
Bakue,  140,  183 

Baronius,    Cardinal,     115,     182, 

184,   185  n.,   205,   212,  246  n., 

265,    274   n.,    298,    299,    300, 

305  n.,  324  n.,  328,  339 

Basil  the  Great,   St.,  74,  82,  84, 

107 
Basilius  the  Prefect,  266 
Basilian  Liturgy,  66 
Basilides  and  Martial,  139 
Basle,  Council  of,  119,  121-124 
Bede,    Venerable,    78,    85,    161, 

200,  316 
Belisarius,  296,  298,  301 
Bellarmine,  Cardinal,  46,  8;^,  205, 

239  n. 
Benedict  I.,  Pope,  112,  303 
Benedict  V.,  Pope,  329,  344 
Benedict  VIII.,  Pope,  330,  344 
Benedict   IX.,    Pupe,    119,    330, 

344 
Benedict  X.,  Pope,  309,  344 
Benedict  XII.,  Pope,  345 


Benedict  XIII.,  Anti-Pope,  334, 

336,  345 
Benedict  XIV.,  Pope,  333 
Bernard,  St.,  4 

Bishop  of  Bishops,  title,  130  n. 
Boethius,  287 
Boniface  I.,  Pope,   97,  217,  237, 

301 
Boniface  II.,  Pope,  288,  289 
Boniface  VI.,  Pope,  344 
Boniface  VII.,  Pope,  326 
Boniface  VIII.,  Pope,  i,  2,  305 
Boniface  IX.,  Pope,  345 
Boniface  of  Mentz,  312 
Bonizo  of  Sutri,  330 
Bossuet,  335 
Bower,  213 
Breviary,   Ronan,  117,  162,    194, 

195 
Bribery   in  Roman  Church,   288- 

290,  291,  330,  337 
Britain    separated   from     Roman 

Empire,  230 
British  Church,  316,  317 
Bulls,  Papal,  2,  146  n. 

C.^iCiLiAN,  156 

Caelestius,  209,  210,  214,  215 

Callistus  I.,  Pope,   131,  132,  343 

Calixtus  II.,  Pope,  140 

Ceesarea,  105 

Cajsarius  of  Aries,  St,  no 

Caius,  Pope,  176 

Canon  Law,  4,   61,   85,   91,   92, 

104,   189,   196,  224,  227,   242, 

247,  259,  295,  309,  312,  340,  341 
Canons  of  Councils,  evidence  of, 

91-124;  how  validated,  156,209 
Canterbury,  340 
Cardinals,  26,  155,  288,  307,  330, 

331  n.,  336 
Caroline  Books,  118,  322 
Carranza,  334  n. 
Carthage,    Councils   of,     97,    98, 

209,  215,  217,  296 
Cathari,  295 
Cassiodorus,  222 


INDEX. 


357 


Catacombs,  evidence  of,  189 
Celestine  I.,  Pope,  98,  106,  217, 

218,  2|i  n. 
Celestine  V.,  Pope,  345  n. 
Celidonius  of  Besan9on,  106,  224, 

244 
Chalcedon,    Council   of,    95,   99, 

159,  165,  196,  204,  236-243 
Charlemagne,  Emperor,  118 
Charter,  Petrine,  7,  45 
Charters  in  Scripture,  21,  189 
Christopher,  Pope,  327,  344 
Chromatius  of  Aquileia,  207 
Chronicle  of  Eusebius,  182,   187, 

193 

Chronicle  of  Nicephorus,  186 
Chrysostom,    St.,    77,    168,   204, 
^.205,255 
Ciampini,  305 
Claudius,     Emperor,     181,     182, 

187 
Clement  of  Alexandria,  St.,  176  n., 

177 
Clement  I.,  Pope,   178,  179,  180, 

182,  192-194 
Clement  II.,  Pope,  330 
Clement  V  ,  Pope,  345 
Clement  VI.,  Pope,  345 
Clement  VII.   (Avignon),   Pope, 

345 
Clement  VII.  (Rome),  Pope,  337, 

346 
Clement  XL,  Pope,  221 
Clementine  Homilies,  71,  90  n., 

178,  179,  192 
Clementine  Recognitions,  186 
Coadjutor  Bishops,  196 
Code  of  Justinian,  293,  298 
Constance,  Council  of,   119,  120, 

335 
Constantine  the  Great,  Emperor, 

I5».  "56 
Constantine  Pc^onatus,  Emperor, 

320,  342  n. 
Constantine  VI.,  Emperor,  323 
Constantinople,    Church    of,    65, 

66,  96,  100 


Constantinople,  General  Councils 

of,  95.   96,   loi,    103   n.,    Ill, 

115.  157,  163,  238,  244,  319 
Constantinople,  Lesser  Synods  of, 

117,  246,  280 
Constantius  III.,  Emperor,  22S  n. 
Cornelius,  Pope,  132-135,  349 
Councils,  incompatible  with  later 

Papacy,     144-146  ;    claims     of 

Popes  over,  149 
Creed,  Nicene,  244 
Creed  of  Pius  IV.,  3,  70,  80,  91 
Cresconius  the  Canonist,  221 
Cresconius  of  Todi,  264 
Cyprian,  St.,  71,  73.  86,  103,  107, 

132-140,  177 
Cyril  of  Alexandria,  St.,  78,  84, 

219,  239,  251 
Cyril  the  Archimandrite,  252 
Cyril  of  Jerusalem,  St.,  86 
Cyrus  of  Phasis,  318 


Dam  AS  us  I.,  Pope,  79,  152,  162, 
167,  168,  169  n.,  187,  196,  310 

Daniiani,  St.  Peter,  44  n.,  184 

Dante,  265 

David,  House  of,  16,  17,  21 

Decentius  of  Gubbio,  208 

Decentralisation  of  Christian  wor- 
ship, 53.  54 

Decretals,  False,  S^,  208,  324, 
347-352 

Decretal,    first   genuine,    169   n., 

324.  . 
Deposition  of  bishops,  204 
Dinoth,  .\bbot,  316 
Dionysius  Exiguus,  96,  221 
Dionysius  of  Corinth,  175,  i8o 
Dionysius,  Pope,  221 
Dioscorus    of    Alexandria,     238, 

241  n.,  253 
Dioscorus,  Anti-Pope,   288 
Doctor  of  the  Church,  70 
Domnus  of  Antioch,  141 
Donation  of  Pippin,  144 
Donatists,  150,  151,  295 


358 


THE    PETRINE   CLAIMS. 


Doroihcus  of  Thessalonica,  275, 

279,  285 
Dupin,  224 
Durandus,  68 

EcTHESis  of  Heraclius,  319 
Edict  of  Gratian,  163  ;  of  Valen- 

tinian  III.,227,  230,  24811., 270 
Eggs,  Von,  337 
Eleutherius,   Pope,  349 
Elvira,  Council  of,  296 
Emperors,    position    of,     in    the 

Church,  147-149,  301 
Ennodius  of  Pavia,   270,  275,  279 
P'phesus,  Canons  of,  99,  227 
Ephesus,  Church  of,  103,  105 
Ephesus,    Council   of,    98,    218, 

239,  241  n. 
Ephesus,  Robber  Synod  of,  232 
Epiphanius,  St  ,  74,  84,  185,  192, 

199 
Epiphanius  of  CP.,  289 
Episcopate,  dual,  at  Rome,  200 
Erwiga,  King,  321 
Eudoxia,  Empress,  206,  233,  235 
Eugenius  I.,  Pope,  343 
Eugenius  II.,  Pope,  322,  344 
Eugenius  IV.,  Pope,  121 — 124 
Eulalius,  Anti-Pope,  217,  301 
Euphemius  of  CP.,  255,  256,  272, 

280,  282,  283 

Eusebius  of  Cajsarea,  126,  129, 
142,  150,  154,  181,  193,  194 

Eusebius  of  Rome,  161 

Eutychianism,  231,240,  251,  257, 
277,  299 

Eutychius  of  Alexandria,  186 

Excommunication  of  bishops,  its 
meaning,  252 

Fabiax,  St.,  Pope,  143,  349 
Fathers  of  the  Church,  4,  62,  69 
Faustinus  of  Potenza,  97,  98,  218 
Felix  II.,  Pope,  95,  343,  352 
Felix  III.,  Pope,   107,  165,  252, 

253,  2^3 
Felix  IV.,  Pope,  no,  287,  288 


Felix  v.,  Anti-Pope,  123 
Felix  and  Sabinus,  139 
Ferrandus  of  Carthage,  292 
Filioque  clause  in  Nicene  Creed, 

245  n. 
Firmilian,  St.,  71,  136,  141 
Flavian  of  Antioch,  169,  274 
Flavian  of   CI'.,  231,    233,   235, 

237  n. 
Fleury,  142,  246  n.,  299 
Florence,  Council  of,  171  n. 
Forcible  entiy  on  benefice,  310 
Forgeries,  Roman,  in  St.  Cyprian, 

140  ;  in  St.  Clement  of  Rome, 

208  ;  in  Nicene  Canons,  242 
Forniosus,  Pope,  326 
Formulary  of  Hormisda,  278-284 
Frankfort,  Council  of,  322 
Fravitta  of  CP.,  255,  283 
Fulgentius  of  Ruspe,  St.,  291 

Gallican  Church,  270,  300,  302, 

322 
Gallican  Missal,  68,  no 
Gammarus,  Auditor  of  the  Rota, 

Gaudentius  of  Brescia,  St. ,  86 
Cielasius  T.,  Pope,  107,   166,  254, 
^  256-259,  263 

Gelasius  of  Cyzicus,  153,  219 
German  Missal,  68 
Germanus  of  Auxerre,  St.,  106 
Gerson,  26  n.,  38  n. 
Grado,  Patriarchate  of,  302 
Gratian,  Decretum  of,  309,  312 
Gratian,   Emperor,    130  n.,    162, 

163 
Gratry,  F.,  315  n.,  320  n. 
Gregory  of  Antioch,  303 
Gregory  the  Great,  St.,  Pope,  78, 

91,  106,  112,  113,   166,  241  n., 

303,  323 
Gregory  II.,  Pope,  117,  320,  323. 

351 
Gregory  VI.,  Pope,  119,  330,  344 
Gregory  VII.,  Pope,  I,  78,  130  n., 

270,  305 


INDEX. 


359 


Gregory  IX.,  Pope,  352 
Gregory  XI.,  Pope,  335,  336,  345 
Gregory  XII.,  Pope,  335,  336,  345 
Gregory  Nazianzen,  St.,  75,  83, 

164,  167 
(iregory  Nyssen,  St.,  79  n.. 
Gregory  Thaumaturgus,  St.,  141 

Hadrian,  Emperor,  37 
Hadrian  I.,  Pope,  79  n.,  119,  149, 

323 
Hadrian  II.,  Pope,  118 
Hadrian  IV.,  Pope,  79  n.,  332 
Hadrian  V.,  Pope,  345 
Hefele,    Bishop,    153,    157,    161, 

162,  233,  254 
Henoticon  of  Zeno,  251,  272 
Henry  IV.,  Emperor,  79,  148 
Heraclea,  105,  258,  275 
Heraclius,  Emperor,  318 
Heresy,  legal  effect  of,  312-314 
Heros  and  Lazarus,  214 
Hesychius,  90  n. 
Hilarus,  Pope,  247 
Hilary  of   Aries,  St.,   106,   224- 

229 
Hilary  of  Poitiers,  St.,  74,  81,  86, 

160 
Himerius  of  Tarragona,  169  n. 
Hippolytus,  .St.,  71,  131,  132,  176 
Hippolytus,  Pseudo-,  177 
Holiness,  note  of,  315,  316 
Honoratus  of  Marieilles,  229 
Honorius,  Emperor,  230,  268,  301 
Honorius  I.,  Pope,  114-118,  317- 

321,  343 
Honorius  II.,  Pope,  331 
Hormisda,  Pope,  274-287,  290 
Hosius    of   Cordova,    151,     153, 

161  n.,  219 
Hugo,  Cardinal,  79  n. 
Hugo  of  Ferrara,  313 
Hurler,  F.,  140  n. 
Hyginus,  Pope,  349 

iBASof  Edessa,  ill 


Ignatius,  Si.,  73,  175 

Illyricum,  Eastern,  15?,  207,  237, 

240,   255,  258,   278,  289,   294, 

300,  302 
Image-worship,  controversy  upon. 

118,  322-324 
Infallibility,   Papal,   5,    115,   16  \ 

221,  240,  320,  321 
Innocence,     hereditary,      of    the 

Popes,  270 
Innocent  I.,  Pope,  196,  205,  207 

-214,  255,  296 
Innocent  II.,  Pope,  332 
Innocent  III.,  Pope,  i,  247,  305, 

312,  325 
Innocent  VIII.,  Pope,  336,  345 
Inquisition,  231 
Intrusion,  legal  effect  of,  309 
Irenaeus,  St.,  104,  126,  128,  176, 

191,  192,  194 
IrenKus  of  Barcelona,  249 
Irene,  Empress,  323 
Isidore  Mercator,  347 
Isidore  of  Pelusium,  St.,  77 
Isidore  of  Seville,  St.,  79  n. 

James,  St.,  the  Apostle,  14,  19, 

20,  30,  39 
James,  St.,  the  Just,  27,  37,  43, 

90  n.,  179 
Jansenism,  221 
Jerome,  St.,  37,  76,83,  159,  16 r, 

173  n.,    182,    194,    208,    210- 

212 
Jerusalem,  26,  27,  37,  51-56,  102 
Jerusalem,  Council  of,  23,  26,  27 
Johannes,  Andrecc,  313 
John,  St.,  the  Apostle,  9,  14,   19, 

20,  21,  31,  37,  127,  128 
John  I.,  Pope,  286 
John  II.,  Pope,  290,  296,  343 
John  III.,  Poi^e,  112,  303 
John  VIII.,  Pope,  79  n.,  326 
John  IX.,  Pope,  327,  344 
John  X.,  Pope,  328,  344 
John  XL,  Pope,  328,  344 
John  XIL,  Pope,  328,  344 


360 


THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS. 


John  XIX.,  Pope,  328,  344 

John  XXII.,  Pope,  345 

John    XXIII.,    Pope,    120,    335, 

345 
John  Damascene,  St.,  79  n. 
John  the  Faster,  of  CP.,  241  n., 

303 
John  Talaia  of  Alexandria,  251 
John  of  CP.,  283 
Julius  Africanus,  176  n. 
Julius  I.,  Pope,  93,  95,  155,  158, 

168,  244,  351 
Julius  II.,  Pope,  311,  337,  346 
Jurisdiction,  St.   Peter's,    19,   21, 

36,  37 
Justin  I.,  Emperor,   130  n.,  280, 

284-288 
Justinian,    Emperor,    in,     281, 

286,  292-294,  299,  301 
Juvenal  of  Jerusalem,  219 

Kenrick,  Archbishop,  80  n. 

Lactantius,  176,  177,  182 
Lando,  Pope,  328,  344 
Laodicea,  Council  of,  92 
Lateran  Synods,  149, 309,  319,  330 
Latin    language,    ambiguity     in, 

103  n. 
Launoi,  149 

Laurentius,  Anti-Pope,  266,  268 
Leander  of  Seville,  113 
Legates,    Papal,    122,    151,    153, 

154,    155'    219,    220   n.,    233, 

236,  252,  255,    264,  275,  279, 

281,  285,  291 
Leo  the  Great,  Pope,   I,  78,  86, 

106,  165,  196,  221-247,  280 
Leo   II.,    Pope,    113,    116,    117, 

157,  320 
Leo  III.,  Pope,  245  n. 
Leo  V. ,  Pope,  327 
Leo  VI.,  Pope,  328,  344 
Leo  VII.,  Pope,  328,  344 
Leo  VIII.,  Pope,  329,  344 
Leo  X.,  Pope,  149,  337,  346 
Leontius  of  Aries,  247,  248 


Liber  Diurnus,  92,  117,  320 
Liber  Pontificalis,  200,  264,  265,. 

30J»  305 
Liberian  Catalogue,  193 
Liberius,  Pope,  159-162,  343 
Liberatus   of    Carthage,    246   n.> 

298,  300 
Linus,  St.,   Pope,  107,    179,  185, 

186,  192-195,  200 
Liturgies,  evidence  of  the,  64-69 
Lothar  II.,  Emperor,  332 
Lucius  I.,  Pope,  349 
Lucius  III,,  Pope,  330 
Ludwig  the  Pious,  Emperor,  322 
Lyons,  Church  of,  108,  no 
Lyons,  Council  II.  of,  no 

Mabillon,  186 

Macedonius   of  C.P.,    272,    274,. 

280,  282,  283 
Mamertus  of  Vienne,  248 
Manichees,  231 
Manning,  Cardinal,  24,  35,  121, 

320 
Marcellinus,  Pope,  340,  349 
Marcellus,  Pope,  350 
Marcian,  Emperor,  235,  236,  246 
Marcian  of  Aries,  133,  138 
Marinus,  Pope,  326 
Mark,  St.,  1 1,  102,  235 
Mark,  Pope,  351 
Marozia,  328 
Martin  I.,  Pope,  319 
Martin  III.,  Pope,  344 
Martin  V.,  Pope,   121,   123,    124, 

335.  336,  345 
Martyrologies,  161,  162 
Matrix,  132  n. 
Matthias,  St.,  23,  43 
Maxentius,  291 
Maximus  of  Antioch,  240 
Maximus  the  Cynic,  167 
Maximus,  Emperor,  231 
Melchiades,  Pope,  150,  295,  348 
Meletius  of  Antioch,  164 
Mennas  of  CP.,  298,  318 
Michael  II.,  Emperor,  322 


INDEX. 


361 


Michael  III.,  Emperor,  239  n. 

Milan,  105,  108 

Milevis,  Synod  of,  209 

Missal,  Ambrosian,  67 

Missal,  Gallican,  68,  no 

Missal,  German,  68 

Missal,  Mozarabic,  67 

Missal,  Roman,  69  n.,  80,  81,  195 

Monothelism,  318 

Montanists,  130 

Moses,  16,  17 

Muratorian  Fragment,  178 

Narses,  301,  302 

Nectarius  of  CP.,  167 

Nero,    Emperor,    177,    178,  182, 

183,  187 
Nestorius,  98,  106,  218,  253 
Nice  I.,  Council  of,  93,  151,  196, 

244,  295 
Nice  II., Council  of,  117,  119,322 
Nicene     Creed,     99,    163,     244, 

245  n. 
Nicolas  I.,  Pope,  239  n.,  305,  324, 

325 
Nicolas  II.,  Pope,  330 
Nicolas  v.,  Pope,  302,  n. 
Novatian,  135 
Nullity,  various  forms  of,  307-3 1 5 

Oak,  Synod  of  ihe,  205 

Oak,  Synod   of  St.   Augustine's, 

316 
Ockham,  William  of,  313 
Odoacer,  King,  266,  267 
(Ecumenical  bishop,  241  n.,  303 
Optatus  of  Milevis,  185,  194 
Orange,  Council  II.  of,  no 
Origen,  72,  86,  177 
Ordo  Romanus,  245  n. 
Orleans,  Council  I.  of,  295 
Otto  I.,  Emperor,  328 

Pagi,  182,  183,  299,  300 
Papebroch,  300 
Papias,  182 
Paris,  Sec  of,  106 


Paris,  Council  V.  of,  112 
Parisian  Divines,  report  of,  323 
Paschal  I.,  Pope,  322 
Paschal  Chronicle,  182 
Paschasinus,  236  n.,  237  n.,  238, 

240,  242 
Patriarch,  253 
Patriarch,  Jewish,  244 
Patriarchates,  226,  246 
Patripassians,  136 
Patroclus  of  Aries,  216 
Paul,  St.,  36-44,  172-182,  208 
Paul  of  Samosata,  141 
Paul  II.,  Pope,  i3on. 
Paul  III.,  Pope,  Bull  of,  146  n. 
Paul  IV.,  Pope,  69  n.,  312,  339 
Pauline  Scriptures,  33,  34 
Paulinus  of  Antioch,  164 
Paulinus  of  Nola,  St.,  103  n. 
Pavia,  Council  of,  332 
Pelagius,  209 

Pelagius  I.,  Pope,  112,  300 
Pelagius  II.,  Pope,  83,  112,  149, 

166,  301 
Peter,    St.,   5-13,    17-40,  43-47, 

62-69,   71-90,    133,    146,   172- 

201,  333 
Peter,  Second  Epistle  of  St.,  I73n. 
Peter  of  Alexandria,  St..  177 
Peter  of  Altino,  268,  269 
Peter  the  Fuller,  251 
Peter  Mongus,  251,  256,  257 
Peter  de  Palude,  313 
Petrus  and  Petra,  45-47 
Philippopolis,  Synod  of,  95,  158 
Philostorgius,  161 
Photinus,  264,  265 
Pilgrimage,  305 
Pisa,  Council  of,  n9,  120,  335 
Pitra,  Cardinal,  154 
Pius  I.,  Pope,  128 
Pius  IV.,  Pope,  Creed  of,  3,  70 
Pius  L\.,  Pope,  I,  13 
Placidia,  Empress,  226  n.,  233 
Platina,  265,  327 
Polycarp,  St.,  127,  128,  20S 
Polycrates  of  Ephesus,  1 28 


362 


THE    PETRINE    CLAIMS. 


Pontifex  Maximus,  130  n. 

Possessor,  291 

Praxeas,  130 

Presbyter,  early  Popes  styled,  128, 

129 
Prescription,  6r,  126 
Primates,  92 

Prince  of  the  Apostles,  63,  68 
Priscillian,  231 
Privilege,  4,  6,  61 
Proculus  of  Marseilles,  107,  216 
Profession  by  Pope  at  coronation, 

117 
Prosper,  St.,  83 
Protesius,  St.,  284  n. 
Ptiidentius,  193  n. 
Pulcheria,     Empress,     165,     235, 

243,  246 

QUARTODECIMANS,   1 27,   1 29 

Quirinus,  13  n. 

Ravenna,  251,  269 

Reparatus  of  Carthage,  296 

Renouf,  Mr,,  313  n. 

Residence,  law  of,  333,  334 

Rescripts,  Papal,  347 

Robber  Synod  of  Ephesus,  232 

Rock,  44-49 

Roman  Church,  2,  50,    145,  174, 

222,  223 
Romans,  Epistle  to  the,  173 
Rome  in  the  New  Testament,  54, 

Rome,  Synods  of,  106,  108,  109, 
112,  114,  118,  119,  150,  250, 
258,  267,  270,  271,   288,  289, 

295,  330,  351 
Rosellis,  Antonio  de,  313 
Rufinus,  93,   152,   186,    192,  194, 

199 
Ryder,  F.,  313  n. 

Sabellius,  131 

Saints,  doctrinal  authority  of,  69, 

70 
Salome,  14 


Sanhedrin,  14^1,  145 

Sardica,  Canons  of,  93-96,  227 

Sardica,  Council  of,  93,  95,  155, 

158,  196 
Scaliger,  181 
Schism,  the  Great,  334 
Sergius  of  CP.,  114- 11 7,  318 
Sergius  III.,  Pope,  327,  328,  344 
Severusof  Antioch,  274,  279,  280, 

299 
Seville,  Council  II.  of,  113 
Sforza,  Ascanio,  337 
Silvanus  of  Calahorra,  249 
Simon  Magus,  177,  178,  181 
Simony  in  Roman  Church,  288- 

290,  296,  330 ;  legal   effect  of, 

Simplicius,  Pope,  250,  252,  266 
Sinaitic  MS.  of  New  Testament, 

57 
Siricius,  Pope,  47,  107,  169,  244 
Sixtus  I.,  Pope,  349 
Sixtus  IV.,  Pope,  337 
Solomon,  17,  21,  23,  51 
"Socrates,  95 
Sophronius,  St.,  318 
Soter,  Pope,  128,  349 
Sozomen,  95,  161,  222,  256 
Spanish  Church,  139,  169,  249 
Stephen  I.,  Pope,  132,  135-139 
Stephen  of  Larissa,  112,  289,  295, 

296 
Stephen  IV.,  Pope,  336  n. 
Stephen  VI.,  Pope,  326,  344 
Stephen  VII.,  Pope,  328,  344 
Stephen  VIII.,  Pope,  328,  344 
Stephen  X.,  Pope,  309 
Subdivision  of  dioceses,  37,  114 
Suburbicarian  sees,  93,  226 
Succession  in  Roman  Sec,  306 
Sutri,  Council  of,  119,  330 
Sylverius,  Pope,  290,  292 
Sylvester  I.,  Pope,  95,  151,   152, 

351 
Symmachus,  Pope,  108,  109,  265, 

270-274 
Syncellus,  George,  183 


INDEX. 


363 


Synodus  Palmaris,  loS 

Syriac  Churches,  32  n. 

Syriac  Liturgies,  67 

Syriac  New  Testament,  46,  47  n. 

Telesphorus,  Pope,  128 
Tertullian,    72,    73,    87,    103  n., 

129,  130,  176  n.,  190-192,  194 
Theodahat,  King,  297,  299 
Theodora,  Empress,  297,  299 
Theodora,  Roman  courtesan,  328 
Theodore  of  Mopsuestia,  1 1 1 
Theodore  of  Pharan,  1 16 
Theodore  II.,  Pope,  327 
Theodore  the  Studite,  322 
Theodoret,  78,  95,  ill,  234 
Theodoric    the    Ostrogoth,    108, 

256,  266,  268,  269,  275,  285 
Theodosius  of  Alexandria,  299 
Theodosius  I.,  Emperor,  164,  165 

167 
Theodosius    II.,   Emperor,    218, 

232,  235,  237 
Theophiius  of  Alexandria,    205- 

207,  25s 
Three  Chapters,  iii,  300 
Tillemont,  225  n.,  246  n. 
Timothy  /Elurus,  284 
Timothy  of  Alexandria,  164 
Timothy  of  C.P.,  272,  276 
Titles  of  Apostles,  90  n. 
Titles  of  St.  Peter,  63,  88 
Toledo,  Councils  of,    113 

245  n- 
Turrecremata,  Cardinal,  313 
Tome  of  St.  Leo,  234,  239,  240, 

251,  276,  299 
Trent,  Council  of,  46,  81,  146  n. 
Tours,  Council  II.  of,  69  n. 
Turin,  Council  of,  107,  216 
Tutus,  Roman  legate,  255 


Ulric  of  Strasburg,  313 
Unam  Sanctam,  Bull,  2,  305 
Unigenitus,  Bull,  221 
Universal  bishop,  241  n.,  303 
Urban  III.,  Pope,  79  n. 
Ursicinus,  Anti-Pope,  162,  310 

Vaison,  Council  II.,  of,  no 
Valentinian   III.,   218,    233,  235. 

See  "  Edict." 
Valerius  of  Hippo,  201 
Valesius,  152  n.,  184,  194  n. 
Venerius  of  Milan,  207 
Venice,  patriarchate  of,  302  n. 
Vicar  of  Christ,  16,  17,  204 
Vicars,  papal,  207 
Victor  I.,  Pope,  128-130 
Victor  III.,  Pope,  119,  330 
Victor  IV.,  Anti-Pope,  332 
Victoriiius,  193,  224 
Vigilius,    Pope,     11 1,    166,   298, 

318,  343 
Vincenzi,  Aloysius,  96 
Vincentius  ami  Vitus,  153,  154 
Vitalian,  274,  27S 
Vizirs  of  right  and  left  hand,  14 
Vulgate,  45,  46 

WnniiY,  Synod  of,  317 
Wilfrid,  St.,  114,  317 
Witiges,  King,  299 


57,       Xystus,  Pope,  128 


Zella,  Council  of,  107 
Zeno,  Emperor,  251,  252,  284 
Zenobia,  Queen,  141 
Zephyrinus,  Pope,  129,  131,  349 
Zoega,  154 
Zosimus,  Pope,  97,  214,  224,  268 


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